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<blockquote data-quote="Whitespace" data-source="post: 44091" data-attributes="member: 386">There&#039;s an issue I find within all the practice of all faiths, and I emphasize PRACTICE. This does not manifest within all monks/ascetics/thorough practitioners of a faith, but I see this within Sufi fakirs/saints, monks in Christianity or Buddhism or whatever else (again, not all!)It&#039;s the virtue made of dehumanization, of holy self-negation. Not control, but rejection of urges. Not humility, but a complete dissolution of the Self. It&#039;s this vision of Man as evil, sinful, not by action but by his inherent and immutable nature, and the idea that dedication to God means leaving yourself.The Self I define as individual identity. Desires, likes, dislikes, dreams, aspirations, experiences, even names or facial features. In weird programming terms, an instance of the class Man.In this worldview, kindness is equated to suicidal self-sacrifice and enjoying life is equated to avarice and selfishness. There is this saying I often hear from Orthodox Christians:&quot;God became Man that Man could become God.&quot;I generally dislike the supposition of man negating God. Man is a microcosm of God. His attributes reflect within His creation. The creative spirit of God manifests in the human drive for creation, in art, in science, in invention, etc. His will manifests in Man&#039;s will. Man, in his most primeval state, is pure good and a reflection of God (who is the definition of good).What I think we see as sin is not inherent inclination, but rather entropy taking course and the eventual dissonance between the world and Man&#039;s will. That is to say, human beings in their origin are good, but ignorant. Sin occurs when Man is exposed to something he finds agreeable that contradicts the will of God. It isn&#039;t that man is &quot;corrupted&quot; as ontological fact, this &quot;corruption&quot; is emergent between the mechanisms of the world and the mechanisms of man.I&#039;m not against control of the self nor obligations towards others. They&#039;re intrinsic to us. Even speaking materialistically, human society cooperates because cooperation is the only way to ensure, in the least, survival. The Prisoner&#039;s Dilemma paints a nice picture of what I mean. While it seems more intuitive to say &quot;fuck you&quot; and not cooperate with other people, if other people don&#039;t cooperate either, both of you lose.I like the ideas of the writer Muhammad Iqbal (as a Muslim myself, and my signature is a quote of his that wraps this post up well). I think of closeness to God not as the obliteration of my identity to make room for Him, but rather self-realization and restoration to Man in his purest state: a ruler, a creator, and a servant before God.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Whitespace, post: 44091, member: 386"] There's an issue I find within all the practice of all faiths, and I emphasize PRACTICE. This does not manifest within all monks/ascetics/thorough practitioners of a faith, but I see this within Sufi fakirs/saints, monks in Christianity or Buddhism or whatever else (again, not all!) It's the virtue made of dehumanization, of holy self-negation. Not control, but rejection of urges. Not humility, but a complete dissolution of the Self. It's this vision of Man as evil, sinful, not by action but by his inherent and immutable nature, and the idea that dedication to God means leaving yourself. The Self I define as individual identity. Desires, likes, dislikes, dreams, aspirations, experiences, even names or facial features. In weird programming terms, an instance of the class Man. In this worldview, kindness is equated to suicidal self-sacrifice and enjoying life is equated to avarice and selfishness. There is this saying I often hear from Orthodox Christians: "God became Man that Man could become God." I generally dislike the supposition of man negating God. Man is a microcosm of God. His attributes reflect within His creation. The creative spirit of God manifests in the human drive for creation, in art, in science, in invention, etc. His will manifests in Man's will. Man, in his most primeval state, is pure good and a reflection of God (who is the definition of good). What I think we see as sin is not inherent inclination, but rather entropy taking course and the eventual dissonance between the world and Man's will. That is to say, human beings in their origin are good, but ignorant. Sin occurs when Man is exposed to something he finds agreeable that contradicts the will of God. It isn't that man is "corrupted" as ontological fact, this "corruption" is emergent between the mechanisms of the world and the mechanisms of man. I'm not against control of the self nor obligations towards others. They're intrinsic to us. Even speaking materialistically, human society cooperates because cooperation is the only way to ensure, in the least, survival. The Prisoner's Dilemma paints a nice picture of what I mean. While it seems more intuitive to say "fuck you" and not cooperate with other people, if other people don't cooperate either, both of you lose. I like the ideas of the writer Muhammad Iqbal (as a Muslim myself, and my signature is a quote of his that wraps this post up well). I think of closeness to God not as the obliteration of my identity to make room for Him, but rather self-realization and restoration to Man in his purest state: a ruler, a creator, and a servant before God. [/QUOTE]

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