/lit/ - Literature

>>20540759
>What is the best argument for Christianity being true over Paganism (Germanic, Hindu, Egyptian, etc.) while also explaining the origins and validity of these ancient religions. Book recommendations appreciated.
If the truth about this matter is what you seek regardless of what that truth is, then read Rene Guenon (PBUH)

By indulging in insincere praise of the goodness and magnanimity of kings, which are really non-existent like the son of a barren woman or the horn of a hare, my poesy has become extremely impure. Now' I shall render it pure and fragrant by applying to it the sweet and cooling sandal paste fallen from the body of the danseuse of the teacher's holy fame and greatness, as she performs her dance on the great stage of the world. May this grand poem, which follows the traditions set by the great poet Kalidasa, (or composed by the poet with the title' of 'modern Kalidasa') be for men of culture and character a heavenly flower plant offering basketfuls of poetical flowers, with which they could perform with delight their worship of the great Guénon, who was none but the grace of Siva embodied as man! It may be that this poetical work of Navakalidasa (modern Kalidasa), though artistic, lofty and meritorious, and though viewed with approval by cultured and scholarly men and holy personages, none the less meets with carping criticism at the hands of perverse scholars and evil-minded poets, just as the cow, a noble animal, meets with slaughter at the hands of barbarians. 11. But why speculate too much on these lines? There are numbers of liberal-minded men, always sporting in the stream of benevolence, and ready to value others' compositions as ,pearls, to whom I could dedicate this work. And above all, there are the great Guénon and my spiritual teacher, on whose gracious approval I can certainly depend. There have been some who attempted to expound the glory of Guénon, but were forced to give up the attempt after having written only two and a halflines on it. For, so deep and profound is the subject. Under the circumstances, am I not, in making this present attempt, like a daring but silly child lifting up its hands to catch the moon?

>>20455863
Congratulations on your self-initiation into the namefag order
May KEK guide you

>>20104958
>Why don't you try actually reading critiques instead of flipping through randomly so that you can claim "all criticism is necessarily due to misunderstanding!"
I did read through a number of them, the first 2 or 3 that I read were all critiques of the idiosyncratic formulations of post-Shankara Advaitins and were not critiques of Advaita as formulated by Shankara. When I finally came across critiques of Advaita by Rao that could be seen as applying to Shankara's Advaita and not only post-Shankara individuals, the errors in what Rao wrote immediately stood out to me. So I decided to pick a decent example of that which wouldn't require 20 pages of autistic analysis and shared it with the thread. I honestly don't think Rao identifies a single real problem with Advaita as far as I'm seen (I have not read the whole book but the signs so far are not looking good) but it looks like he misunderstands Advaita doctrines to mean something else aside from what Shankara means, and then Rao criticizes his own mistakes. Sorry to spoil your long-awaited dream of someone finally demonstrating a problem in Advaita but Rao doesn't do so either.

>There is, presumably, a reason this metaphysics has not been recognized as the one true metaphysics.
Yes, not all humans are equally endowed with the capacity for metaphysical insight/realization, just like not all humans have the same IQ and math skills, plus karma from past lives impacts our current actions and spiritual inclinations.

>A common critique is that the role of Maya falls into the excluded middle
Advaitins already answered that over a millennium ago, kek. The Law of Excluded Middle is not violated by Maya because, 'absolutely real' and 'absolutely unreal' are not exhaustive and admit of the third alternative, the ‘relatively real’ to which belong all world-objects. In order to claim that this answer is wrong you'd have assert that there is no such thing as a difference between absolute being and relative being or falsity (same thing) and hence that there is only being and non-being full-stop; but this conclusion is exactly what the argument sets out to prove and so you can't cite that as your reasoning to demonstrate that or it's the logical fallacy of circular reasoning which renders that argument fallacious. You may reply that the Advaitin hasn't offered proof of his absolute being / falsity / absolute non-being triad model; but that's besides the point since its incumbent on those wishing to refute Advaita doctrines to demonstrate a logical contradiction in them *already as they are*, and the non-offering of proof of the triad isn't a logical contradiction.

>>20104967
>Something that is both true and false is not consistent with logic.
I agree, fortunately Shankara's Advaita doesn't ever say that something is both true and false, which you would know if you had read the primary sources or took a serious look at any halfway decent secondary source

>>20089922

>Before passing on to consider time, however, it may be pointed out that the inexistence of an 'empty space' is enough to expose the absurdity of one of Kant's too famous cosmological antinomies: to ask 'whether the world is infinite or whether it is limited within space' is a question that has absolutely no meaning. Space cannot possibly extend beyond the world in order to contain it, because an empty space would then be in question, and emptiness cannot contain anything: on the contrary, it is space that is in the world, that is to say, in manifestation, and if consideration be confined to the domain of corporeal manifestation alone, it can be said that space is coextensive with this world, because it is one of its conditions; but this world is no more infinite than is space itself, for, like space, it does not contain every possibility, but only represents a certain particular order of possibilities, and it is limited by the determinations that constitute its very nature.

>>19311046
>and buddhism is not annihilationist and not even contemporary schools are annihilationist
Except you know, the part about how they argue that our entire mental and psycho-physical existence is comprised of transient aggregates and that there is no self or soul outside of these aggregates or identical with any of them, and that nothing from these aggregates continues into Parinirvana when an arahant's body dies. Aside from that, there is no annihilation.

>>19305714

>Before passing on to consider time, however, it may be pointed out that the inexistence of an 'empty space' is enough to expose the absurdity of one of Kant's too famous cosmological antinomies: to ask 'whether the world is infinite or whether it is limited within space' is a question that has absolutely no meaning. Space cannot possibly extend beyond the world in order to contain it, because an empty space would then be in question, and emptiness cannot contain anything: on the contrary, it is space that is in the world, that is to say, in manifestation, and if consideration be confined to the domain of corporeal manifestation alone, it can be said that space is coextensive with this world, because it is one of its conditions; but this world is no more infinite than is space itself, for, like space, it does not contain every possibility, but only represents a certain particular order of possibilities, and it is limited by the determinations that constitute its very nature.

From what books can I learn to vivisect and violently refute ideologies proactively?
Like Guenon did it