Again, I think that in some schools of Hinduism, they have a rather fancy solution to this kind of problem too:
For one, there is karma and reincarnation, practically doing away with the problem of evil as we are used to it in the West.
Then they have the concept that time is cyclical, and that there is no eternal damnation. That does away with a good portion of our other concerns.
For three, they have several conceptions of God and how an individual human can relate to God. This can briefly be explained on the examples of two kinds of devotion of two women. One is Queen Kunti who thinks of God as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the One from which everything else emanates; what she feels for God are awe and reverence. The other is Mother Yasoda, a foster mother of an incarnation of God. Mother Yasoda doesn't know her foster son is the Supreme Personality of Godhead; she thinks she is merely dealing with a dear child that has been entrusted into her care and she loves him unconditionally.
The idea is that a person cannot simultaneously know God to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but also love God in an intimate way.
In mainstream Christianity, one tries to have all those feelings for one conception of God. I think this is where Christianity is lacking.
The God who rules the Universe - that is the God for whom one has awe and reverence. I think awe and reverence are mutually exclusive with feelings of intimate love.
Well I never think it will be easy to travel roads like this. Perhaps this could be elaborated into a zen christian koan, if my interpretation is not sufficient. I think a child can be in awe and have intimate love at the same time. A young boy could see his intimately loved father as the all-powerful being who can make the spinach go away (referring to a podcast by ken wilbur "turning spinach into candy"
http://feeds.feedburner.com/INpodcast , which is accessible on itunes, or maybe it is in here too -
http://rationalspirituality.com/articles/NatureOfNature.htm)
Are we more than children to a God? I don't think so. The issue with our relationship to God is how to progress from beings that can only experience God in this pre-rational way, to beings who can experience God in a rational way. This is our spiritual evolutionary path, one of the external stimuli requiring evolution (the lack of habitat or whatever), being this issue of perception.
But what do humans need salvation from? God's wrath? Or their own sins, in the sense that sinning is making their lives hard, in the here and now??
I've never been able to relate to this idea of salvation or that there is a need for it. I've never liked the image of God as implied by the idea of salvation. To me, the mainstream idea of salvation just strengthens the conviction that God is a terrible being whose wrath we must try to avoid, or suffer the consequences forever. And I don't want to think about God that way.
I agree that the standard ideas of the wrathful God, from whom we must be saved, are not useful for creating anything but fear, or maybe "respect" or "awe", but never love.
In this osho video he describes our seeming need to be taught love while hate is totally natural. Although this could be denied as our "natural" state, it is undeniable that the world we live in is deeply flawed, and the responsible party (if we are to maintain any human value at all, we must also maintain responsibility), at this technologically developed stage of our existence at least, is humanity. (Just to avoid anyone misinterpreting me as an Oshoist or whatever that would be called, i disagree with much of his "answers" but deeply appreciate his train of thought in providing questions).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0H5JnNXpTM&feature=relmfu
So we clearly need to be saved from ourselves, or our listening to the devil, or however anyone wants to frame it. I personally am going with needing an external metaphysical intervention due to my current "understanding" of our existence as somehow relating to something outside of our current material box, but i have no problem with the idea of saving ourselves if that intervention is not going to be effective.
Actually, I think what primarily deserves discussion are ideas about evangelizing and conversion.
Interestingly, in traditional Buddhism, a Buddhist practitioner is not supposed to teach, unless so invited by the person seeking instruction. There is no notion of evangelizing as such in traditional Buddhism - evangelizing where someone would make a point of talking about spiritual/religious topics to people who are not members of the same religion he is, especially without those people inviting him to do so.
i personally think discussions on important subjects are valuable as long as they can be real discussions and not proselytizing or evangelizing. I am not judging in any way, however, those people who feel the need to stand on the street corner or run around trying to convert others, as long as they are preaching something logically consistent and valuable to humanity, which, admittedly, most are not.
The way people from different cultures think of maya is a good example: In traditional Eastern cultures, they don't associate the idea of maya with notions that this life is not real or that it is worthless; Westerners, however, tend to see it that way.
I think this is because we tend to be exposed to the idea of maya in a very limited way, not understanding its complexity and how it ties in with other ideas, and also because the people from which we hear about it or the circumstances in which we hear about it aren't all that palatable.
Here you point out one thing we need to be saved from - maya. the fact that people in the east are saved by teachers, gurus, or themselves , doesn't preclude the fact that they must be saved. Unless, of course, hanging out in this disinformation is perfectly wonderful, in which case, why bother with any striving of any kind?
(Amitabha buddha and "pure land" buddhism, also seems to allow for an external savior, and i am less informed on that subject than i should or intend to be.)
Maybe Descartes himself wasn't all that peaceful either. But he was willing to submit to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and declared himself an ardent believer.
what his private thoughts were we probably do not know, but i agree that most people are not going to be comfortable, initially, with "maybe logic", and require solid ground to stand on, right or wrong.
When it is not clear what the "self" is, or when the notion of "self" is itself what is being under scrutiny, "trusting oneself" becomes a tricky concept.
trusting oneself is necessary unless you wish to trust no one, or some one else, so i see it as less tricky than the other options.
Is it worthy to look for a happiness that would not change, not deteriorate, that would last? Some would say that it is not worthy, that there is no such happiness to begin with.
Although, arguably, it is only this lasting kind of happiness that we look for whenever we look for happiness - even when we try to find it in impermanent things and even when we rationalize it away as impossible.
I still insist that happiness is only part of what it means to be human, and until we go beyond our current state, it is futile to try to maintain a state of constant happiness, possibly even psychologically unhealthy. It is certainly cruel to taunt the world of humanity with the idea that they SHOULD be happy all the time, in this life, at least as i see it, as we exist currently. To be free from UNNECESSARY sorrow may be a good goal. To be free from the suffering CAUSED by inaccurate thinking, or other evils, yes. Not pure happiness as described by many people.
