There’s a great question in the comment section regarding the obsession with the human body that has engulfed US politics. The question is important because it points to the issue at the heart of our current ideological confrontation.
The human body is the greatest impediment to an absolute and unbridled human freedom. The body is an enemy of unconstrained choice. Our physicality frustrates our desire to be in complete control of our destiny. We can’t be whatever we want because our bodies won’t let us. The rage of a human being, who has assumed a godlike role and whose efforts to refashion the world are constantly thwarted by the limitations of his body, creates a simmering conflict that erupts on regular occasions.
The taming of our inflamed hubris is the only way out. But there’s no longer any circumscribing force. We have released ourselves from every duty, obligation or authority, and the body remains the last barrier between us and our capacity to be mini gods.
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You are faster on the reply than I!
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Your answer in that thread is spot-on. The corpse of protestantism is emitting noxious fumes, and we are inhaling them.
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I just read the comment that inspired this post. It is interesting how gnoticism/dualism has made a cultural comeback. And it does seem to be connected to the ascendency of computers, the internet, and “hacker” culture. My personal impression is that a fascination with the occult has always been there in hacker circles.
By the way, on this general subject, a very interesting book is The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy by Yuriy Stoyanov.
(commenter formerly known as AcademicLurker)
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In Ukraine, this is discussed a lot because people are trying to understand the bizarre hangups that are engulfing the West. It’s easier to see things from s distance, I guess.
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The constraints of the physical body, only represent our shared Humanity. To achieve destiny greatness a person must introduce “chiddushim” new understandings of previously falsely assumed dogmatism.
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Very interesting take — though, based on what you say above. this level of self-flagellation and resistance at the inevitable fate of mortal existence is disturbing and futile.
In oriental/Hindu philosophy the body indeed maybe limited/finite but the soul (a.k.a. Consciousness) can still be a vehicle to be experience the infinite and, as per Advait philosophy of Vedas, even achieve oneness with the life force powering everything. To deny this spiritual continuum, and view temporary nature of mortal experience in a reductionist way, is like fish hating the water and trying to be bigger than the ocean which sustains it every moment of its existence. It’s unhealthy to fight it or view it as a limitation.
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Gnosticism will never die, alas. The material world is a good, its limits are useful, and men will never be gods.
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