Arquivo para a ‘Noosfera’ Categoria
What is the divine medium
21
Apr
In times of crisis, prophets, oracles, Plato’s “sages” and all kinds of false wisdom
come to the fore, as it is important and many seek a “divine” sign, the question is what is the “divine” medium for those who do not believe and for those who seek in faith a reason to hope.
For those who believe, the passage of John 3: 13-1 fits well: “If you do not believe, when I speak to you of the things of the earth, how will you believe if I speak to you of the things of heaven? And no one went up to heaven, except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be raised, so that all who believe in him may have eternal life ”.
The “things of the earth” are not so far away, says the reading, no one went up to heaven, except the one who descended, the Jesus son of God and those who do not believe the earthly Jesus, a historical man, who was later raised on a cross, to finally reappear resurrected.
Let us return to earth, explaining precisely the Divine Environment (Chardin, s / d), who wrote: “in their effort towards mystical life, men often yielded to the illusion of brutally opposing the spirit and the flesh, the body and the soul, as if it were good and evil. Despite certain current expressions, this Manichaean tendency was never approved by the church … “(p. 117).
Thus, understanding the complexification of human life, concentration in large urban centers, agitation, excessive noise and mainly the purely economic view of life led to the “natural” thinking of idealism, the purely economic view and the omnipotence of the state.
So look at things from above, it does not mean “to leave the world”, even though there are purely contemplative orders and they are serious, when speaking of the Cross, Chardin shows that “every man persuaded that in the face of immense human agitation [writes this in the decade of 30 we have already said it] opens the way towards an exit, and that this path is to go up ”(p. 113), the emphasis is the author’s.
It points to this path of climbing, the choice of fundamental principles, in this case it is life, and they are among the brave who will triumph, says the author, and the scoffers who fail, because they did not climb and they do not rise.
Thus the author will affirm the reality of the historical Christ, which shows us how a life “in the world” can be a mystical and concrete ascent, “the passionate and unfathomable reality of the historical Christ” from which we draw many examples, and so is human life of a Divine Being.
Thus, in times of pandemic, not only the gesture of preventing oneself by using hygiene conditions, but also social gestures to help those who have no job and to the elderly and family members infected by covid-19, as well as help in the family are examples. of concrete divine life.And halfway through this night of crisis they leave their lesson of Love deeper, to give their Life for men.
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The pandemic and the Other
17
Apr
Although the so-called horizontal isolation received the name (in the Brazilian case)
of “social isolation”, a name that would be more proper and less aggressive would be families retreat, in other countries also called confinement, as in France.
The recognition of the Other in the family also leads to an improvement in the social relationship, except in cases of families where the family relationship was already in a situation of extreme conflict, the tendency will be to practice acts of solidarity and tolerance.
This is necessary for a good social interaction, and to find the face of the Other, which is not the same, a term widely used in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Lévinas, Habermas, Agamben and Byung Chul Han, I certainly forget several since the theme it is present in current philosophy. The self-defense instinct, which must be coupled with a change in social behavior, can make the virus a catalyst for cultural change, that of thought is ongoing and the religious one essentially depends on what those who proclaim the faith think and who should to move from the sacredness of your thoughts to the substantiality of the world.
We will have to help people in order to help companies, work and education itself, worldwide EaD (Distance Education) tools, video conferences and chats, which from families can be re-educated, are being widely used, Brazil had an unprecedented meeting of the Federal Supreme Court by Skype, condominium meetings, etc.
Some countries like Denmark and Finland are already announcing the reopening of primary schools, but with some parents having restraint and fear of sending their children, adults will be able to cope with forms of distance education, at least for now.
As will be the religious re-education with closed temples, one pastor played sax for his faithful, another one put photos of the parishioners in his celebration, but an even bigger step needs to be taken for faith to appear beyond social solidarity (many food campaigns for the poorest) which is the act of mercy, the only one capable of showing the face of the Other without prejudice and “social isolation” from those who have a new different view of religion.
The eclipse of God and the pandemic
16
Apr
Martin Buber, who was a Jew, gives his name to his book “The eclipse of God”
(1952), because for someone who believes, and if he believes, God is not dead, but undeniably some “solid” veil eclipsed him in modernity, which it seems to be “dissolving”, as stated by Buber.
I agree and it is always my analysis that the misunderstanding of the current thinking situation, we have already talked about the night of thought this week, Buber also affirms that it was the emergence of Kant’s Idealist thought that states that “God is not an external substance, but only a moral relationship in us ”, and Hegel who sees God as an abstraction.
However, the Hegelian synthesis is so powerful, it is the summit of idealism for different readings that can be made of it, its abstraction will confuse the divine Trinitarian, with an “absolute abstraction”, using the categories in-itself, of-itself and for -si, where the “for” is not a beyond, but a return to yourself. I do not exclude two aspects outside this context, but Marx’s “young” Hegelianism found Feuerbach, also the need for denial of the absolute, and starting from Feuerbach’s atheistic theology (in a way also Kantian), the religious idealism of Steiner, Bruno Bauer and others, who calls them “are” Bruno, Steiner, etc.
Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’, is due precisely to his fideistic and fundamentalist formation, coming from a Lutheran family he will try to deny him (to God) throughout his life, but it is important to read him because he reveals what many people call him. a fundamentalist and little “substantial” faith, this is disconnected from reality. We have reached the bottom of the can in modern existentialism, and the pandemic crisis takes us back to it, the search for a reason for existence, which seeks to know if the insistence on “religious necessity” does not point to something inherent in human nature.
This is the problem that “torments” Buber, who also wrote Eu Tu where he practically affirms the existence of a horizontal God present in the human relationship, not being a Christian he is curious because he discovers the one who is “between two or more who are in my name ”(Mt 18,20), as a relationship with God, for Christians it is Jesus.
The central problem, which is that of the Trinity, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, will not be addressed by Buber, but when commenting on Sartre’s existentialism, as part of the existential crisis of modernity, he affirms: “Does the existence, like the Sartre understands, it doesn’t really mean being there ‘for himself’, encapsulated in his subjectivity, or does it mean being there before a certain X – not just any X, to which a certain greatness should be attributed, but the X par excellence, the indeterminable and peerable? ”asks Buber.
The existential problem is that without the “substantial” God and he exists if we believe that Jesus is God is not separable from the triune God, and faith is inseparable from this “divine medium”.
The crisis of Western thought and the pandemic
14
Apr
Old analyses still grounded in idealism, which study the state model, economic problems and
anthropocentric models do not account for the new reality, the global pandemic was caused by a virus and caught every society unprepared.
The net analyses continue with discourses about obviousness, we are one planet, the problem is everyone’s, we have to review values, etc. but those that point to the future still live in the dimness of a thought about ideals that have been exhausted, but not the discourses.
Edgar Morin, who has long been pointing to a planetary citizenship, approaching 100 years and keeping a lucid head, in an interview with the L ́Observateur of 03/18 said: “Confinement can help us detoxify our way of life”, and in the same interview points out that “this crisis shows us that globalization is an interdependence without solidarity”, and that it has produced a techno-economic unification of the planet.
In the same vein Byung Chul Han wrote in the Society of Tiredness, that we are all in active life and ignore contemplative life, however the pandemic has taken us out of activism and we still do not know what to do with the “idleness” of staying at home, there is even religious discourse that calls it a tomb, but we will talk about it when we speak of the night of God and the instrumentalized religiosity of today.
To those who do not believe in this analysis, I remember that successful programs like “reality show” are now in fact realities because each one lives in his home, and “master chef” now has to happen in practice in families because restaurants are closed.
As for the technological aspect pointed out by Morin we can not forget that in addition to the global news, now for work, for education and even for leisure videoconferences are now realities, there are still those who curse against them, but it is schizophrenia because they are now necessary and even to maintain trade are indispensable, online shopping are there.
The detoxification of our way of life did not come through a plan of government, nor by a great cultural change, although the pandemic suggests this, even in our homes we still seek the unrealities of contemporary life, the pandemic, however causes a change of this vision.
The East and some countries, I quote the case of Portugal, are succeeding because of a certain discipline in the #StayAtHome when Peter Sloterdijk in The rules for the human park spoke about the failure of “human domestication”, did not imagine that a virus could demonstrate its thesis, will come out of the crisis early and will have fewer dead countries with greater social discipline.
Finally, Social Networks (not to be confused with the techno media we talked about above), the dynamics of the spread of the virus follows the logic of networks, and so if these studies are taken seriously we may be more ready in the defense of lives, not by chance the infectologist Carl Latkin is one of the scientists with the greatest publication in this subject.
The sense of pain and sacrifice
10
Apr
Death causes us pain, fear and even despair; in the face of a pandemic, it reveals
aspects of tragedy, anxiety and apprehension, and we can do everything we can to prevent greater pain, but some go further and worry and donate to reduce the pain of others.
This is a human meaning, but the divine goes beyond what it means to be able to donate one’s life, or to put it at risk for the sake of the Other, only in this limit do we really understand the meaning.
Teilhard de Chardin, after admitting that the cross means “evasion out of this world” (p. 114), will explain to us that it is precisely it (in the present case the fear of death by the pandemic, “that exactly the path of human effort , supernaturally rectified and prolonged.
Because we have fully understood the meaning of the Cross, we no longer risk thinking that life is sad and ugly. We simply become more aware of its unspeakable seriousness.”(page 115).
So we thought of the happy days that we could walk freely and savor the air of the city, see the beaches now banned from being visited, the joyful family lunches, but it is for this loss that we now look with other eyes whose blindness could not allow.
How beautiful it would be an Easter Sunday with the whole family, or just going out to see happy autumn days in the southern hemisphere or early spring in the northern hemisphere, but it is this pain and this terrible pandemic that makes us “change glasses”, also in spiritual aspect.
So Chardin points out: “the cross is not an inhuman thing, but a superhuman one. We see well that the origin of Humanity today, the Cross was erected at the front of the road that leads to the highest peaks of creation ”, we will have to rethink home and social life after this pandemic. Chardin invites us to the mystery: “let us get closer. And we will recognize the flamed Seraph of the Alverne (picture), the one whose passion and compassion are “incendium mentis” *. For the Christian, it is not a question of disappearing in the shadow of the Cross, but of ascending in the light of the Cross.” (page 116).
Take advantage of this night of the pandemic to shed light on the “night of culture”, on the “night of God” and on the “night of the senses” that seemed to make us suppress all sensitivity to human life and the Other.
Let us live these three “nights” well to achieve an Easter (in sense of passage) for all humanity.
* incendium mentis – David Grummet says that in Chardin it is “fire of divine love in our soul”.
Chardin, T. (no year) O meio divino (The divine medium). Lisbon: Editorial Presença.
The “war” and pandemic economies
08
Apr
The only economic model we have of a situation in which the productive forces
of society are disorganized by the impossibility of going to work or by the effort concentrated in another activity is the “war” economy, however there is a difference because it is not war between peoples , the enemy is now a virus that has the power to do a war-like damage.
John Kenneth Galbraith wrote after the September 11 attacks, believing in a possible war, that “in a war economy, the public obligation is to do what is necessary: to support the military effort, to protect and defend the national territory, and especially to maintain the physical well-being, solidarity and morale of the population ”.
Of course, military effort can be exchanged here for medical effort, but it is already happening because not all productive forces are disorganized, the reorganization of oeconomicus, the initial meaning in ancient Greece that gave rise to the word economy, that is, the domestic economy. However, the social economy must reorganize, still in a period of pandemic, paralyzed sectors such as domestic tourism, the light and heavy mechanics industry and the consumer goods industry can be rethought around the “war effort”, in several countries to the auto industry has been called to make and restore hospital equipment, and hotels are used to house some homeless people, in short it is possible to rethink some things.
Volunteers working in needy communities are also an important effort, clothing stores can make clothing and masks to help the population, probably this should continue after the pandemic, as shown by eastern countries, the use of masks is common in Japan and some eastern countries. Family spaces should also be rethought, personally I have always built an office outside or isolated in the home environment, an American report went viral that the reporter’s wife enters his current office to remove the children.
We also did not make monthly purchases, of course, storage has a perverse side of being able to increase or even disappear some products, as happened in Brazil with milk, and the gas cylinder apparently has some speculation at stake, but we must reorganize the economy of the “Neighborhood” where people can travel less and make monthly purchases.
The main thing is to overcome an “economocentric” model and think of a biocentric one, I prefer the anthropocentric one because pets and nature must also be thought of in the social relationship.
There is a “paschal” side not only for the period we live in, but for the number of deaths and the struggle to reduce this number, in those who have sensitivity there is a feeling of death, but the struggle for life, the essential thing is the bread of each day and the resurrection to come gives this paschal environment.
The changing worldview
03
Apr
The Ptolemaic model changed the Aristotelian worldview by creating a model of
spiral movement for stars and planets known at the time, changing the worldview, but it was Copernicus who changed the view that took the Earth from the center of the universe and placed the Sun, this model helped the anthropocentric worldview by opposing the theocentric worldview.
Galileo’s great controversy with the theological view was not the cosmological view, but the question of interpretation and biblical reading by the “common”, not by chance the first popular version was called “vulgate” and when deepening the biblical reading some interpretations exegetical activities have been set aside.
However, Galileo before the Holy Office actually affirmed “E pur si muove” (translating Italian and then moves) that today he could look at the whole universe saying “E pur tutto si muove”, everything is in motion and the dynamics no longer resist the classic worldview Being and Not Being, there is an excluded third party that can be thought of as Not Being is still Being, quantum physics and the string model indicate a third state, which is already used in quantum applications.
So the theoretical models and the idealistic worldview together with their universe model collapsed for some time and even the Standard Physics Model that explained particle physics seems in check with the studies of dark matter and energy that are nothing more than 95% of the universe.
The vision of seeing the world through a shock of opposition is gradually crumbling, when admitting an excluded third party (as the Sourbone professor Florent Pasquier calls it) admitting not a synthesis (the result of idealistic opposition, thesis and antithesis), but a third possibility that conjugates with the other two. It must affect the religious world, it is a great support for a time to unite minds and hearts to fight the world pandemic, and it can be the germ of great changes.
A biblical reference to the subject is the moment on the cross that Jesus cries out to God, who no longer calls him Father, the tradition says in the Aramaic language of his mother Mary, and feels separated from the Father, prays in the Trinitarian vision in that Jesus is also God, it is a paradox to separate from the Father.
Jesus on the cross is repeating Psalm 21 “My God, my God, because you abandoned me”, and it seems to be the cry of all humanity in the face of the pandemic, and it is also possible to read the “excluded third” where we learn that the opposition has time and the answer must be everyone’s.
However, the mystical explanation is precisely the third excluded, the human nature of Jesus is reconnecting it to the Father, if we want Teilhard Chardin’s noospheric vision to the Universe, the reading says that it was a great night.
The sign of Lazarus and the pandemic
27
Mar
The pandemic came to warn us that it is not life that matters the economy anymore,
we posted this week that it is not the oeconomicus of home and agriculture (of food we would say today, because food processing is already part of history), it is that of speculation by banks and exchanges.
Now it is life that governs the economy and not the other way around, maybe an economic Darwinism could say in the beginning it was money and then man came, nothing more unreasonable, but it is clear that if an economy goes to ruin, the maintenance of life is in the limit, it stays like this in wars, comes the famine.
But the sign of the pandemic is still poorly read even by economists, and even more lost by some leaders and even religious is the sign of Lazarus (his tomb in side), more than half a million infected and death coming is not enough reason for the even stronger economy on the planet want to stop.
A careful reading of the bible reveals that Jesus knew of Lazarus’ death (John 11: 4-7) and it was not before because the Jews were reluctant to change the lifestyle of “law” and tradition, and wanted to stone him, however. Jesus explains to the disciples that they did not want to return to Judea out of fear, that this should happen so that the people there understood that a change was necessary.
What change the world expects, yes, if we win the pandemic, but the global effort, the idea of stopping and reviving the domestic economy that includes the relationship and well-being of those close to us requires a “conversion”, a change in cultural attitude , taking care of what is beside us and taking care not to be “infected”, the sign of Lazarus is that death comes, but the cure will also come.
The important thing is what we will do next so that a new crisis does not set in, we already had influenza and in Brazil vaccination is beginning, but will we be prepared for another pandemic, without understanding that hospitals and the economic health of the people, in particular, of the simple people is essential, we will not understand anything.
Lazarus did not rise (he later died of a natural death), he just revived and Jesus said that this disease “does not kill”, that is, humanity will not be exterminated, but the hard lesson must be learned is the life that governs the economy and not the other way around, and let’s do our part #FicarEmCasa and applaud the health workers
Not wanting to heal
26
Mar
A system in crisis, whether for social, economic or political reasons, it tends to become
more confusing and toxic until it finds a way to heal itself, when the reason is a natural catastrophe or a disease is not much different, but these affect life directly.
Not wanting to heal and defend life is an attitude of self-sabotage whether for conscious reasons or unconsciousness explains psychology, it is that attitude of creating obstacles and obstacles that hinder tasks to find ways, in this case healing and preserving lives, and so he thinks that there is no way to achieve the goals of cure or co-immunity, the immunity achieved by joint actions.
From a cultural point of view, it is both ignorance, and in this case the view of specialists and health agents must be the “technical” view that prevails, including the economic view, it is thus a blindness, saying it is just a flu or we are dead end (unconscious self-sabotage) is a phenomenon of directing the mind to mistaken thoughts, and this exists culturally.
The biblical narrative tells that a man spent 38 years in a bed and could not reach a natural pool called Siloam (in Hebrew means envoy) and I need Jesus’ intervention to tell him to take his bed and walk (John 5: 7- 9), a miracle but also a break with paralysis and in this sense it is also a metaphor.
But there are those who thought they saw and did not see, the blind man born who is healed in the Bible is someone who did not have a cognitive system prepared to see, and the fact that he comes to see is a miracle but also another metaphor, which due to cultural and contextual blindness it is not possible to see, when leaving this context it is possible to see.
Now wanting to heal or not is a psychic attitude, wanting to see and having the physiological system to see it takes effort and overcome the self-sabotage that makes blindness a comfort zone.
Healing the Other
25
Mar
The psychologist Carl Jung gives an expanded sentence of what many have already said,
among them Gandhi: “You cannot hurt the other without hurting yourself”, thus also added Jung: “he who heals the other, heals himself”, in times of pandemic it is good to think this.
Fools say, the older and the sick are the group at risk this would happen, but more people infected and greater is the social contagion, and more people outside the “risk group” are affected, we are at an exponential moment in the Americas, it’s time to take care of yourself.
The economies are collapsing it is true, but along with it the idealistic models that have been in crisis for a long time, the agony came due to the fragility in which they found themselves, it is not this or that model, all current models are centered on “Economy” and development, sustainable development was invented for a time, but nature has shown that this model is unsustainable and resources are exhaustible.
Let us return to disease, the source of current blindness, and the prolongation of the cultural crisis and night of God, the appeals and prophecies are not lacking everywhere, they want signs and miracles as in the Jewish culture of the time of Jesus, but the sign is there and it is the blindness that prevent us from seeing.
The crisis was in the media, or in networks that are different things, now they are the lifeline to keep in touch with the proper distance, to keep companies and schools running, they were not evil.
Of course not, the loss of relationships does not depend on the means (the media) we use, and putting ourselves in a network now seems clearer, it is putting ourselves first in front of those closest to us, taking care of and taking care of them, things that we remember to do for our grandparents, who seemed closed and backward.
Saving the economy even if people die, that is the foundation of a world where, at bottom, the economy that everyone was concerned about, maybe a minority really thought about the well-being and balance of life lived in essence, without luxury and with a certain “ comfort”.
Due to the circumstances we have to think like this, after all the oecomicus (in Greek: Οικονoμικός), by the writer Xenofonte is a Socratic dialogue that deals with the domestic economy and agriculture, yes the economy has evolved, but nobody should have lost its origins, after all no one went to the malls, but to the markets to buy food and be able to #StayAt home.
