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Paradox does not exist in my religion (a pagan one).
Polytheism. In polytheism we have 33 million Gods (the Hindus found the number in this one ) so everything we experience has it's own God. All Gods create the Cosmos and each God fits. So nothing is strange. (I hope Im not offtopic)Which variety of paganism do you practice, syo?
Polytheism. In polytheism we have 33 million Gods (the Hindus found the number in this one ) so everything we experience has it's own God. All Gods create the Cosmos and each God fits. So nothing is strange. (I hope Im not offtopic)
According to people who are supposed to know, a paradox is, "A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true."
Paradox | Meaning of Paradox by Lexico
For a while now, it has struck me how religion is the ritualization of paradox. Various paradoxes are central to the teachings of a variety of religions. In Zen Buddhism, for example, one meditative technique used by practitioners are koans, which are paradoxical statements, questions, stories, etc. used to open one's mind and awareness to a deeper understanding than may be immediately obvious. Throughout Eastern religions, there is a common thread that understands reality as "non-dual," which itself is a paradoxical insight that perceives the oneness or unity of all things despite their apparent differences and separateness.
Paradox exists in the Abrahamic traditions as well. Christianity, with which I'm most familiar, utilizes a number of paradoxes in its theology, including certain understandings of the Eucharist (bread and wine as divine flesh and blood), the Trinity (three divine "Persons" in one Being or substance), and the Incarnation (God as man) - though I grant not all Christians accept these interpretations. Jesus employs paradox multiple times in the Gospels, such as, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:33)
Existence itself is mysterious, paradoxical, not completely within our intellectual grasp, try as we might to discover as much as we can. And I think one of the primary functions of religion is to honor and highlight that mystery through ritual.
What are your thoughts? How is paradox expressed in your religious tradition, or other traditions you're aware of?
For me, it generally isn't expressed, IMO.What are your thoughts? How is paradox expressed in your religious tradition, or other traditions you're aware of?
According to people who are supposed to know, a paradox is, "A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true."
Paradox | Meaning of Paradox by Lexico
For a while now, it has struck me how religion is the ritualization of paradox. Various paradoxes are central to the teachings of a variety of religions. In Zen Buddhism, for example, one meditative technique used by practitioners are koans, which are paradoxical statements, questions, stories, etc. used to open one's mind and awareness to a deeper understanding than may be immediately obvious. Throughout Eastern religions, there is a common thread that understands reality as "non-dual," which itself is a paradoxical insight that perceives the oneness or unity of all things despite their apparent differences and separateness.
Paradox exists in the Abrahamic traditions as well. Christianity, with which I'm most familiar, utilizes a number of paradoxes in its theology, including certain understandings of the Eucharist (bread and wine as divine flesh and blood), the Trinity (three divine "Persons" in one Being or substance), and the Incarnation (God as man) - though I grant not all Christians accept these interpretations. Jesus employs paradox multiple times in the Gospels, such as, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:33)
Existence itself is mysterious, paradoxical, not completely within our intellectual grasp, try as we might to discover as much as we can. And I think one of the primary functions of religion is to honor and highlight that mystery through ritual.
What are your thoughts? How is paradox expressed in your religious tradition, or other traditions you're aware of?
I think Wikipedia's definition is much more helpful:According to people who are supposed to know, a paradox is, "A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true."
Please correct me if I'm wrong ─ I take it that in substance you're offering the following propositions as examples of religious 'paradox' ─For a while now, it has struck me how religion is the ritualization of paradox. Various paradoxes are central to the teachings of a variety of religions. In Zen Buddhism, for example, one meditative technique used by practitioners are koans, which are paradoxical statements, questions, stories, etc. used to open one's mind and awareness to a deeper understanding than may be immediately obvious. Throughout Eastern religions, there is a common thread that understands reality as "non-dual," which itself is a paradoxical insight that perceives the oneness or unity of all things despite their apparent differences and separateness.
Is this the propositionsParadox exists in the Abrahamic traditions as well. Christianity, with which I'm most familiar, utilizes a number of paradoxes in its theology, including certain understandings of the Eucharist (bread and wine as divine flesh and blood)
If that meansExistence itself is mysterious, paradoxical, not completely within our intellectual grasp
I think Wikipedia's definition is much more helpful:
A paradox [...] is a logically self-contradictory statement or
a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation.
Please correct me if I'm wrong ─ I take it that in substance you're offering the following propositions as examples of religious 'paradox' ─
"The sound of one hand clapping" is a paradox. [?] (If so, it would be a self-contradiction paradox, in that, strictly defined, clapping requires two hands.)Is this the propositions
"The universe is a unity despite its consisting of constituent parts" is a paradox. [?] (I may misunderstand you here, but as I've expressed it, not until you get to a Zeno-like claim that change / movement is impossible do you actually get to a paradox. Otherwise, the idea of the universe is not incompatible with the idea that it has components ─ the same is true of a car or a toaster.)
"An unaltered wafer and an unaltered wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus" is a paradox [?] (The change occurs only in the mentation of the individual. Arguably it may be a simple error of fact rather than a paradox.)
"The Trinity [doctrine] (three divine "Persons" in one Being or substance)" is a paradox [?] (Not only is it self-contradictory but by calling it 'a mystery in the strict sense' the churches acknowledge that the notion is incoherent.)If that means
"The Incarnation of God as man" is a paradox [?] (All five versions of Jesus in the NT specifically deny that they're God, and none ever claims to be God. But the real problem is the lack of any sufficient definition of a real God (one with objective existence) such that if we found a suspect we could determine whether it were God or not. That is, the idea of a real God is the paradox).
"Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it" is a paradox [?] While that apparently involves a self-contradiction, it's really a metaphor, no?
"Things exist" and /or "I exist" and / or "People exist" are each paradoxes.then I respectfully disagree. The question 'Why is there something instead of nothing?' seems to me not to involve any self-contradiction.
As to the hypothesis of your post, supernatural religious belief is found in just about every culture in the world. That would suggest that it's an evolved trait of H sap sap, or perhaps an artifact of another evolved trait, such as the human instinct for providing instant explanations to unexplained phenomena, a useful survival tool in its own right.
I was trying to understand what you were saying by unpacking it. Forgive me if that doesn't accord with your wishes.I'm not really interested in going point-by-point back and forth with you here, because I fear that would just become a debate, and my purpose in this thread isn't to debate. If you don't like any of my examples of paradox or apparent paradox, that's fine.
You'll have noticed that at no point did I further refer to that definition. I simply gave the Wikipedia definition in full. However, the illusion of the Penrose Triangle is an example of that kind.If the definition of paradox that you prefer can be as simple as something that runs contrary to one's expectations, then existence seems chock full of such examples (at, least, in my experience).
Achilles and the Tortoise is the one that had the biggest impact on my thinking about the relationship of time and space. Another way of looking at the same problem is the "Arrow" paradox (here).Are there any examples of paradoxes that intrigue you? Excite you? Make you ponder when you lay awake at night?
According to people who are supposed to know, a paradox is, "A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true."
Paradox | Meaning of Paradox by Lexico
For a while now, it has struck me how religion is the ritualization of paradox. Various paradoxes are central to the teachings of a variety of religions. In Zen Buddhism, for example, one meditative technique used by practitioners are koans, which are paradoxical statements, questions, stories, etc. used to open one's mind and awareness to a deeper understanding than may be immediately obvious. Throughout Eastern religions, there is a common thread that understands reality as "non-dual," which itself is a paradoxical insight that perceives the oneness or unity of all things despite their apparent differences and separateness.
Paradox exists in the Abrahamic traditions as well. Christianity, with which I'm most familiar, utilizes a number of paradoxes in its theology, including certain understandings of the Eucharist (bread and wine as divine flesh and blood), the Trinity (three divine "Persons" in one Being or substance), and the Incarnation (God as man) - though I grant not all Christians accept these interpretations. Jesus employs paradox multiple times in the Gospels, such as, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:33)
Existence itself is mysterious, paradoxical, not completely within our intellectual grasp, try as we might to discover as much as we can. And I think one of the primary functions of religion is to honor and highlight that mystery through ritual.
What are your thoughts? How is paradox expressed in your religious tradition, or other traditions you're aware of?
That's a pretty good way of understanding that. It reinforces the normal egoic seeking for itself. To tie this into the Christian teaching of "seek and you shall find", that seeking to find, is paradoxically accomplished by "not seeking". In other words, you seek to not seek.Jiddu Krishnamurti was of the controversial opinion that trying or desiring to attain enlightenment paradoxically hindered or prevented its attainment.
But how was the paradox resolved?
Something along these lines, I believe: Desire -- even the desire for enlightenment -- somehow strengthens normal, day-to-day consciousness. Which works out to be the sort of consciousness that one is trying to get beyond in order to arrive at enlightenment. Now don't quote me on that. That's just the best I can make of it. I could be quite wrong.