Private Universe

Give your heart to Jesus (if you want)

I am finding that my yoga readings are giving me a new framework to relate to people of faith.

Baxter and I took our usual midday walk today and passed a local church whose sign was reading "GIVE YOUR HEART TO JESUS." The first thing that popped into my head was "oh, they're on the path of love." Sometimes called bhakti yoga. Personal devotion and love for the deity of your choice. It's not the path I'm on, but it's going to the same place.

Analytic philosophy is not particularly helpful in understanding religion; some philosophers think that having faith compromises the dedication to reason that they value, and others (like me) think that you can have faith and reason as long as you keep them separate in your head and in your philosophy writings. For example, you can believe in God as a matter of faith and reasonably (in my opinion) expect not to be attacked for your beliefs. That is how freedom of religion works. But once you start claiming that you can prove that there is a God, you should expect your proof to get attacked from all sides. Once you start talking in terms of reasoning and proving, you are playing the philosophy game, not the faith game. At that point it's not fair to complain "stop attacking my beliefs." That is how philosophy works.

Respect and tolerance are good, but I'm grateful to have a little bit of actual understanding.

Labels: ideas, yoga

posted by Jaime_sama @ 2:25 PM