Some say that Religion and Wisdom go hand in hand. That one is unable to thrive without the other. In this Explanatory Synthesis I will discuss Karen Armstrong and Robert Thurman beliefs and differences about the two subjects. I am going to be using the section “Homo Religiosus” written by Armstrong and the section “Wisdom” written by Thurman to compare the author’s views.Robert Thurman is one of the first Americans to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk.
He is a scholar, translator, activist, and lecturer. Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. The section “Wisdom” is taken from the book Infinite Life (2004). Thurman.
Karen Armstrong was a Sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, part of a Roman Catholic order. In 1981 she wrote her first book based on her experience of being a member in this Roman Catholic order. Armstrong has written several books that examine alliances among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The section “Homo Religiosus” is taken from the book The Case for God (2009).The section “Wisdom” by Thurman focuses on trying to find your own self. The way to do this is to try to get rid of your inner demon that is always telling us to do the things that we do.
It is this thing that closes your mind to others.Thurman states “Realizing your selflessness” does not mean that you become nobody, it means that you become the type of somebody who is a viable, useful somebody, not a rigid, fixated-I’m-the-center-of-the-universe, isolated-from-others-somebody (Thurman Pg: 462). In “Homo Religiosus” Armstrong discusses how Nirvana was a life lived according to the Buddha’s doctrine. Anatta required Buddhist to behave as though they did not exist. Thoughts of self not only led to “unhelpful” preoccupation with “me” and “mine”, but also to envy, hatred of rivals, conceit, pride, cruelty, and-when the self felt under threat – violence (Armstrong Pg: 37).Thurman believes that seeing others in a closed mind causes us to become afraid of the things that are not clear to us.
Once a person defeats this then they have found their true self. They then no longer are only concerned with the problems of their own life but are more concerned with the problems and issues of everyone around them.“One of the most significant changes you will notice upon discovering you selflessness is that your sense of being separate from everyone else has now eroded. Your new awareness enables you to perceive others as equal to yourself, a part you, even.
You can see yourself as they see you, and experience empathically how they perceive themselves as locked within themselves”. We all have been to a point in our lives where we think we have ourselves figured out.By being knowledgeable with a closed mind, we think we know there is to know about something. This gives us a sense of safety because we think we will know how to act and respond to a certain situation that we feel we know everything about. When it’s all said and done we are wrong to think that we know everything that has been curtained to us.
This way of thinking is caused by the inner demon making you believe something that your true self would not believe. In order to find your true self you must admit your fault, but this is difficult for us to do because the demon do not want us to be aware of not knowing what to expect. “Knowing something is a way of controlling it, being able to put it in its proper place in relation to us so that we can use it effectively” (Thurman Pg: 464-465).(Armstrong Pg: 37) As a monk became expert in cultivating this dispassion, he no longer interjected his ego into passing mental states but learned to regard his fears and desires as transient and remote phenomena. He was then ripe for enlightenment.
In “Homo Religiosus” Armstrong details in great lengths to which mankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that is called by many names such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Armstrong describes each of these religious beliefs in detail.These individual religions all have different beliefs. Focusing on Christianity but including numerous spiritualities, Armstrong analyzes the diminishing religion of our time, when people either want nothing to do with God or question the effectiveness of faith.Armstrong test our customary beliefs about God, recognizing that our science and technological accomplishments have exceeded our religious thinking which tends to be incipient and underived. Armstrong tells how traditional beliefs of God have become debatable in the modern times.
Reason and faith, science and religion, were placed in opposite to each other. They were considered antithetical: If one is held to be true, then the other must necessary be false.Armstrong makes a distinction between logos and mythos, maintaining that the current crisis of faith stems from the confusion of two very different types of discourse. Logos refers to dialectics, reasoned, logical and scientific thought; mythos denotes narrative that is timeless and conveys meaning.
Armstrong argument is cumulative and does not rely on human support. She traces the development of our ideas of God, starting with the cave paintings of beast and man in the underground caverns of Lascaux, in southwestern France, going from the Paleolithic age to the present time, describing humanity’s continuing quest to comprehend the sacred.She contends that eventually ultimate reality took on unapproachable ness, holiness, and an everything-ness that defined definition and abstraction. She makes it plain that religion was experimental in the ancient world, inextricably linked to everyday life and not a mere mental assent to doctrines.Armstrong explains how earlier philosophers and theologians were generally very reticent in speaking about God.
They were reluctant to attribute human attributes to God who transcends the limits on human reason and language. The idea of God is merely a symbol of indescribable transcendence and had been interpreted in many different ways over the centuries. Armstrong sees religion as a matter of doing” rather than a matter of allegiance to unchanging beliefs.She compared religion to a form of art. It is something that is used to escape the woes of the word and the demons that one carry around on a daily basis.
That release can come in all kinds of factors such as, drugs, sex, poetry or art form. Armstrong is truly trying to figure out what she also believes about religion. She has been taught so many different things that she’s trying to find religion a place in her book to be comfortable with.Over the centuries religion has changed drastically. It has become a comfort to most. People turn to their God when they have no one else to turn to.
Most depend on their God on a daily basis to get them through life. Every religion is not the same.They all practice differently and they all believe differently. It is some religions that have similarities, but that is where the gulf stops at.
Those similarities do the most separation being that they are only similar and not the same. When an individual have a strong belief in something especially the Supreme Being that they worship it is rare that they are willing to believe in another religion ways. They may listen but in the end they are going to dispute the others beliefs.Both authors speak about emptying of the self to become one with the universe, meaning putting all of your selfishness, pride, and greediness away so that you can truly experience that peaceful nature that all of mankind seek.
Until you truly focus on something other than yourself you will never have the peace of mind that is sought after. The authors also discuss what it is to be enlightened.Thurman say’s to be enlightened one must not know him/herself. When you do not know thy self than you become aware of others around you that are suffering and need help. These authors writings are similar as far as beliefs of religion goes.
Their writings can be compared with the reader come up with the same conclusion that these writers are very passionate about the Supreme Being.ReferencesArmstrong, Karen (2009 – 2012). Homo Religiosus, Miller, Richard & Spellmyer Kurt, The New Humanities Reader (Pgs: 22-43).Thurman, Robert (2009 – 2012). Wisdom, Miller, Richard & Spellmyer, Kurt, The New Humanities Reader (Pgs: 460-475).
