scholarly journals On Reason and the Power of Life (Tolstoy contra Spinoza)

Problemos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 127-138
Author(s):  
Svetlana Klimova
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
Geometric Form ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Real ◽  
Critique Of Religion

In his search for the meaning of life, Tolstoy turned to Spinoza’s rationalist teaching about freedom, reason, morality, and religious faith. Spinoza created a philosophy where beliefs are in union with deeds, logic unites with ethics, and knowledge joins faith. According to Tolstoy, it is art that makes a synthesis of all the best attempts of the real, true philosophy. I argue that Tolstoy’s artistic method of linkage (stseplenie) was probably borrowed from Spinoza. Inspired by Spinoza’s “theorems of reason,” Tolstoy created his own “axiom of life” and elaborates on the concept of the “power of life” as a core of religious faith. Tolstoy endorsed Spinoza’s rationalistic critique of religion which helped to liberate true faith from the power of superstition and church dogmatics, but he criticised the geometric form in which Spinoza put the truths he discovered.

scholarly journals PERJALANAN ROHANI PERSPEKTIF KAUM SUFI

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Adnan Adnan
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Spiritual Experiences ◽  
The Real ◽  
Spiritual Path ◽  
Final Goal ◽  
Life Journey ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Sufi Order

Sufism as a spiritual life was frequently to be a return place for the tired man because of his life journey and an escape place for the pressed man. Beside that, actually sufism can strengthen the week individuals missing his self-existance. By sufism, they found the real meaning of life. In the teachings of sufi order, the seeker (salik) has to pass through spiritual path (thariqah) in order to know Allah as the Final Goal by passing a long journey and spiritual stations (maqamat) to improve their bad characteristics. This is significant to do for salikin, especially to make his inner empty, and then adorn and decorate it with all of good characteristics to reach higher and higher stations (maqamat). In the other hand, they found a religious-psycological experiences which is called ahwal to achive the spiritual experiences with Divine Reality (Haqiqah).

Beyond Abstraction: Marx and the Critique of the Critique of Religion

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Toscano
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
The Real ◽  
Social Existence ◽  
Spiritual Authority ◽  
Mike Davis ◽  
Critique Of Religion

AbstractThis article reconsiders Marx’s thinking on religion in light of current preoccupations with the encroachment of religious practices and beliefs into political life. It argues that Marx formulates a critique of the anticlerical and Enlightenment-critique of religion, in which he subsumes the secular repudiation of spiritual authority and religious transcendence into a broader analysis of the ‘real abstractions’ that dominate our social existence. The tools forged by Marx in his engagement with critiques of religious authority allow him to discern the ‘religious’ and ‘transcendent’ dimension of state and capital, and may contribute to a contemporary investigation into the links between capitalism as a religion of everyday life and what Mike Davis has called the current ‘reenchantment of catastrophic modernity’.

Revelation as apologetic category: a reconsideration of Karl Barth's engagement with Ludwig Feuerbach's critique of religion

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Richard Paul Cumming
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Critique Of Religion

AbstractThis article examines Karl Barth's engagement with the philosophy of religion of Ludwig Feuerbach. InThe Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach proposes that religion is a function of human projection and that the Christian concept of God represents the crystallisation in one objectified subject of all the finite perfections of individual human beings. InChurch Dogmatics, I/2, Barth seeks to respond to Feuerbach's critique of Christianity by affirming Feuerbach's critical account of the nature of religion but arguing that, since the original impetus of Christianity issues not from human projection but from God's act of self-revelation in Jesus Christ, Feuerbach's critique of religion does not apply to the Christian faith. Glasse notes that this response, whilst satisfactory to the Christian, would be ‘not intelligible’ to those who do not accept the Christian faith. Furthermore, Barth's apologetic manoeuvre, Vogel claims, entails that Barth is unable to defend the plausibility of the Christian faith on the terms set by secular culture, and that Christian theology is therefore required to abandon any attempt to participate constructively in general public discourse. Vogel recognises that this is a drastic recourse indeed, observing that it would be judicious for Christian theology to seek to elaborate a response to Feuerbach's critique which can stand without requiring the critic to assume the veracity of the Christian faith. This article argues that, by taking into account the role of Feuerbach's earlier work,Thoughts on Death and Immortality, for constituting the philosophical impetus of Feuerbach's critique of Christianity, the Christian theologian is able, using Barth's theological anthropology, to provide a response to Feuerbach's critique on Feuerbach's own terms. InThoughts on Death and Immortality, Feuerbach argues that Protestant Christianity, as the paradigmatic expression of religion, conceives the individual as an absolute being, and that, due to the fact that everyday existence clearly counter-indicates this absolutisation of the human individual, Protestantism posits a second, eternal life, in which the limits bound up with individual existence are eradicated. Using Barth's theological anthropology inChurch Dogmatics, III/2 and III/4, this article proposes that Barth concurs with Feuerbach's critique of the absolutisation of the individual, but that he is positioned to deny that this absolutised conception of the individual has anything to do with the Christian faith insofar as he accurately represents it.

scholarly journals Music and Gymnastic harmonization under the viewpoint of the platonic meaning of life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantina I. Gongaki ◽  
Stavros Kapranos
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Targeted Intervention ◽  
The Real ◽  
Soul Music ◽  
Philosophical Education ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Living Being

The essence of life according to Plato is summed up in the tendency of every living being to protect itself and its species from death, by searching immortality. This pursuit is achieved either by reproduction or by intellectual creation. In order for the soul to conquer the existence which will be worthy of man, it must separate from the mortal body. The highest goal of philosophical education is the soul to be led to the view of the idea of the good (agatho), which is the foundation of all knowledge. Thereunto, specific courses are proposed, Music, Gymnastics, Mathematics and Dialectics. Music is preceded temporal and absolute by gymnastics. The school of Pythagoras was the first to put the music-soul relationship, in the service of upbringing and mental physique.               Plato attempts to establish man's tendency for rhythm and movement in nature and in the gods. At the same time, he emphasizes the balance between mental and physical education, in order to form the right ethos. For the best fulfillment of these terms, the two superior parts of the soul must be properly trained, the logical with music and the thymoides with gymnastics. The symmetrical movement of the body is ensured by exercise, while for the soul, music and philosophy are used. This targeted intervention will lead them to a harmonious connection. Moreover, it should be ensured that the movements are symmetrical with each other. This is the real goodness (kalokagathia). The unilateral cultivation of gymnastics at the expense of music is considered the main cause of the decline of the excellent republic and the decadence in oligarchy, in the regimein which the morality is imposed by violent, uneducated people who will have neglected the real Muse, the one who is accompanied by the logic and philosophy. 

scholarly journals Brain Drain Techniques in Revolution 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4S4) ◽  
pp. 243-245
Keyword(s):  
Brain Drain ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Education System ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Real ◽  
New Generation

Chetan Bhagat, being a prominent contemporary Indian novelist, explores the various facts related to youth power in India. Bhagat writes about every aspect of society in his novels. His novels are not merely a photographic picture of society, but a reflection of a particular moment. In this novel Revolution 2020, Bhagat effort has been taken to expose the faulty educational system. It is one of the dominent themes in his novel. With the help of this theme Bhagat tried to show that, students are not in a position to cope with the syllabus. Students are treated as machines. With the help of this novel Bhagat shows students are not rated on the basis of their innovative ideas. They don’t like the teaching method. The students are rated on the basis of how much they perform in their exams. The education system of IIT, Delhi depicted in this novel is criticised. Bhagat finds that IIT education is not sufficient for the overall development of personality. It adheres to the same patriarchal norms and codes of education where students are so much overloaded with assignments, class tests and major exams. In this situation, they forget the real meaning of life. The education is for life and not only for securing a job. Every student tries to learn their subjects by heart but the system is not working very well. The students have to mug up their subject. Today’s new generation always comments regarding their study and they always blame the educational system

scholarly journals Epistemology of “Natural Religion” by D. Hume: Hidden Paradoxes

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Vitaliy J. Darenskiy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
The Real ◽  
Radical Skepticism ◽  
Proofs Of Knowledge

The article examines the paradoxes of the concept of “natural religion” by D. Hume, which arose as a result of his application of the method of radical skepticism to the subjects of religious faith. It is shown that the analysis of D. Hume is a movement from the original theses of a skeptical nature – to theses that coincide with traditional views. The main paradox of his concept is that the impossibility of rational proofs of knowledge of anything (including knowledge of the existence of God) leads to the fact that the basic epistemological category of D. Hume is the category of faith (belief). This, in turn, leads to the disappearance of fundamental differences between what is commonly called “positive” (scientific) knowledge and religious faith. Moreover, in this case, it is religious faith that turns out to be a kind of “model” of any knowledge as such. The merit of D. Hume in clarifying this question is that he clearly pointed out the illegality of separating the representation from the judgment and conclusion in acts of knowledge – and returning reflection to their primary unity in the real experience of consciousness.

The Vitalism of Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilian Calles Barger
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Total System ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
A Charge ◽  
Critical Theology ◽  
Critique Of Religion

This chapter explores how liberationists responded to the modern critique of religion as ideology by building a critical theology asserting the world-shaping role of religious faith. Rousseau, Feuerbach, and Marx set the course for subsequent social theorists to consider the possibilities and limits of religion as a revolutionary force. Diverse thinkers had brought a charge against religion as detrimental to social progress, and yet by the mid-twentieth century the criticism seemed less essential to modernity. Other social thinkers drew on religious ideas useful for multiple, and often radical, political and social projects. The ambivalent secular/religious opposition of modernity served as an opportunity for liberationists to assume a critical stance toward religion as ideology while retaining a positive utopian function for faith. Furthermore, recognizing the many ways individuals were inescapably embedded in society rendered the struggle for freedom as confronting a total system of domination, of which religion was only a part.

Barth, Religion, and the Religions

2019 ◽  
pp. 636-653
Author(s):  
Joshua Ralston
Keyword(s):  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
To Come ◽  
Critique Of Religion

Barth is often depicted by theologians of religion as representing an exclusivist position on both salvation and the knowledge of God. This chapter troubles these claims through a reading of Barth’s discussion of religion in the second edition of his commentary on Romans and his critique of religion in §17 of Church Dogmatics. Building on Barth’s commitment to the primacy of revelation and particularity in §17, the chapter then critically challenges how Barth extends his critique of religion to non-Christian religions, which are often characterized by sweeping generalizations and dismissals. Barth thus fails to come to grips with the challenge that other religious traditions present to Christianity—not as religions, but as alternative claims to revelation. As such, theological engagement with other religions after Barth should not be based on a return to the category of religion, but on a deeper engagement with the primacy of revelation and particularism—both those of Christianity as well as those of others.

scholarly journals Sport, Olympism and Two Lifestyles

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (84) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miloš Bednář
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
The Real ◽  
Moral Dimensions

Research background and hypothesis. The study analyses two lifestyles: asceticism and hedonism. Spiritual and moral dimension of our lives form a wider background and the field of sport, especially renewed olympism, affect the closer one of our reflections.  Research aims were to compare both lifestyles and to make the character of their relation clear;  to map the real role of asceticism in the sports sphere and to integrate both lifestyles into a certain meaningful whole.Research methods. Our methodology is philosophical, involving conceptual analysis and the application of the outcomes to sports practice.Research results. Both concepts have usually been considered as contrary or polar. Yet our analysis leads into persuasion that they are in dialectic relation with many mediations and “bridges” between them. Spiritual and moral dimensions play an important role in the topical reflections.Discussion and conclusions. Many authors warn about the close junction between sports and asceticism. The role  of  hedonism  is  analyzed  much  less. We  tried  to  find  some  balanced  position  within  the  framework  of  the integrated whole. The final part of the study tries to show that the topic ought to be joined with a horizon of meanings. Promoting “reasonable asceticism” can be one aspect of raison d´être of today’s sport in this postmodern world with the supremacy of hedonistic orientation.Keywords: asceticism, Pierre de Coubertin’s attitudes, hedonism, meaning of life

scholarly journals Wyznaniowe zróżnicowanie kultury gospodarczej. O ideologicznym nadużyciu znanej tezy

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Aniela Dylus
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Protestant Ethic ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
The Real ◽  
Value Hierarchy

More than one hundred years ago, Max Weber agued that the Protestant religion, particularly the religious ideas of Calvinism and the Puritan ethic, played a positive role in creating the capitalistic spirit. The article hereby attempts to show that this thesis (the Protestant Ethic Thesis) gradually evolved into different stereotypes. It also appeared to be especially prone to some ideological abuse. The description of these stereotypes and different forms of abuse has been preceded with attempts to answer some questions such as: Is the cultural context of economic life really differentiated with regard to religious ideas? Is Max Weber’s thesis timeless? In fact, the results of various kinds of research allow to falsify the thesis given above. It is the real religious faith as such and not its content that is economically significant. However, there are some cultural differences between Catholics and Protestants that are determined by their religious faith. These differences concern rather e.g. their different focus on the value hierarchy or significance attached to satisfying needs.

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