psychoslice
Veteran Member
So what if they are fighting over it, the fight is useless, for there is nothing to fight over, how can anyone fight over all there IS, its just a joke made by the ego.
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is tao theisitc or nontheistic
- Thread starter Iti oj
- Start date
chevron1
Active Member
If they fight over it, there will be death and destruction. That will affect our bliss as well.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
So what, no one dies, and no one is born, we are all the Tao, fighting over it wont make it more Tao, or less the Tao.
chevron1
Active Member
Then it will affect destiny for Tao as well. This is nihilism, is it not? That is the flaw of such philosophies.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
The Tao isn't a philosophy, philosophy is of the mind, the Tao is beyond the mind and any philosophy you can muster up.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
The problem is that you have made the Tao your religion, which it can never be.
chevron1
Active Member
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Well I'm sorry but that's not the Tao, you cannot reduce it to a concept, religion or anything, because then its not the Tao.The Tao is religion. It is my religion.
chevron1
Active Member
Well, you just go tell that to the Chinese in China. It's their native religion/philosophy.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
No its not, the Tao was a concept by lao Tzu, he never wanted it to be put into words, but his disciples kept asking him to do so, so he did, but everything he writ wasn't the Tao, it pointed to the Tao only, and of course a religion had to form, but that doesn't make that religion right or wrong. A religion will take you away from the Tao, for you are already that which IS.
chevron1
Active Member
All nonsense. What is important is if they keep fighting, there will only be death.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
So what, if there is death or not, it makes no difference to the Tao.
Jeremy Taylor
Active Member
I think a lot of the confusion here is due to vague and conflicting notions of theism and non-theism.
I would argue that theism does not necessarily denote the worship of beings who are personal in a sense univocal sense to us. In the Semitic monotheisms, for example, God is not an old man in the sky. He is the ground of being. He is a person but, as Aquinas points out (and many theistic philosophers more or less agree), but predications of him, like personality, are only analogous to those of human beings.
The Tao is most certainly a spiritual concept. Taoism is not atheistic or naturalist in the modern Western sense (just as Buddhism is not). It has far more in common with traditional Christianity or Islam or Hinduism than it does with any atheism or naturalism in this sense. However, although there are a lot of similarities between the Tao and Braham, mystical conceptions of God in the Semitic monotheisms, the Platonic One, and Nirvana, it is not quite interchangeable with any of these. And it would probably be best to consider it non-theistic as it does not emphasis the personal aspects of the Tao (though the Tao is not impersonal in the sense a natural force may be said to be impersonal - it transcends personality).
I would argue that theism does not necessarily denote the worship of beings who are personal in a sense univocal sense to us. In the Semitic monotheisms, for example, God is not an old man in the sky. He is the ground of being. He is a person but, as Aquinas points out (and many theistic philosophers more or less agree), but predications of him, like personality, are only analogous to those of human beings.
The Tao is most certainly a spiritual concept. Taoism is not atheistic or naturalist in the modern Western sense (just as Buddhism is not). It has far more in common with traditional Christianity or Islam or Hinduism than it does with any atheism or naturalism in this sense. However, although there are a lot of similarities between the Tao and Braham, mystical conceptions of God in the Semitic monotheisms, the Platonic One, and Nirvana, it is not quite interchangeable with any of these. And it would probably be best to consider it non-theistic as it does not emphasis the personal aspects of the Tao (though the Tao is not impersonal in the sense a natural force may be said to be impersonal - it transcends personality).
Politesse
Amor Vincit Omnia
If we are asking this question, I think we need more categories than "theistic or atheistic". It is obvious to me that a thing which cannot be named without ceasing to be what it is must not be a god in the sense of, say, traditional Christianity of Greek paganism. Those gods all have calling cards. But I think the all-encompassing theism of the West gobbled up other perspectives, such that mystics and pantheists and Deists and all the rest instinctively call the greater powers that be "God" even if they see them as nameless, or neuter, or beyond questions of personality. Christianity's discourse has overrun us.
chevron1
Active Member
hmmm.... i didn't realize that you had replied psychoslice. the tao does not care but it does have a concept of destiny. if destiny does not achieve, then it is lost to the world and that is why life and death do matter to the tao in a metaphysical way.
Jeremy Taylor
Active Member
Traditional Christianity and Greek paganism (understanding this latter, for now, in a probably incorrect polytheistic sense) have very different understandings of God(s).
St. Augustine wrote that everything we can say of God is not true. Although far from all traditional Christian thought is apophatic, it is certainly the case that God is thought of as beyond mortal conceptions for the most part. I really don't know where people get the strange idea that Christianity believes in something like modern Theistic personalism from. If you read any of the Fathers or Divines of traditional Christianity, you find again and again that the God they are referring to is not a person or being in the sense that any created being is or could be.
Taoism, for its part, talks about the Tao, even that it calls nameless, so it isn't strictly the case that it is beyond naming. Indeed, I see certain similarities here between many traditional Christians thinkers and mystics and Taoism.
That said, I certainly wouldn't assimilate the Christian idea of God to the Tao. No two traditions ever speak about things in completely the same way. But still I think there may be interesting parallels. If Taoism is to be considered non-theistic, a designation that with due care I think is probably best, this must be separated entirely from atheism and naturalism in a modern Western sense. Taoism has infinitely more in common with traditional Christianity than with these latter.
St. Augustine wrote that everything we can say of God is not true. Although far from all traditional Christian thought is apophatic, it is certainly the case that God is thought of as beyond mortal conceptions for the most part. I really don't know where people get the strange idea that Christianity believes in something like modern Theistic personalism from. If you read any of the Fathers or Divines of traditional Christianity, you find again and again that the God they are referring to is not a person or being in the sense that any created being is or could be.
Taoism, for its part, talks about the Tao, even that it calls nameless, so it isn't strictly the case that it is beyond naming. Indeed, I see certain similarities here between many traditional Christians thinkers and mystics and Taoism.
That said, I certainly wouldn't assimilate the Christian idea of God to the Tao. No two traditions ever speak about things in completely the same way. But still I think there may be interesting parallels. If Taoism is to be considered non-theistic, a designation that with due care I think is probably best, this must be separated entirely from atheism and naturalism in a modern Western sense. Taoism has infinitely more in common with traditional Christianity than with these latter.
chevron1
Active Member
The name "Tao" is a designated name. Tao lacks a true phenomenological name.
Jeremy Taylor
Active Member
I am not sure how you are using the terms designated and phenomenological here. In some sense the Tao is a referent.
Certainly, the Semitic monotheisms, except in their more contemplative and esoteric aspects (though these aspects are widespread and in Christianity include most of the Fathers and many great divines of the Church), do not worry about the pitfalls of conceptualisation as much as Taoism does. But God is not a name in the sense Jeremy is a name. In this sense God and Tao are not that different (though I am arguing that non-theistic is still the best label for the Tao).
Certainly, the Semitic monotheisms, except in their more contemplative and esoteric aspects (though these aspects are widespread and in Christianity include most of the Fathers and many great divines of the Church), do not worry about the pitfalls of conceptualisation as much as Taoism does. But God is not a name in the sense Jeremy is a name. In this sense God and Tao are not that different (though I am arguing that non-theistic is still the best label for the Tao).
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psychoslice
Veteran Member
Just the word concept is wrong, the Tao isn't a concept which is derived from the mind, no mind no concept, also the Tao has no destiny, that which arises from the Tao seems to have a destiny, but even this is wrong, there is only here, and Now, this is to rest in the Tao.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Yes I agree with that, even though its wrong, that is in the bigger picture.