Where to Shine the Light of Enlightenment

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Jul 7, 2011 at 14:00

One of the problems of this contemporary scene is that too few yet understand that the world is not operating either by the precepts of 'European Enlightenment,' 'rationalism,' 'ancient Oriental myths,' or by some agnostically fueled commiseration of evolutionary processes intent on bringing humanity to some secular utopian scenario riding on the wave crest of some humanist rationale that this world can function by itself. And to be sure, religion for the sake of empty religious observances does not do the trick either. To the contrary, the world is temporarily operating in spite of them.

Having lived for decades under the various schools of thought, each trying so hard to prove this version or that version of a particular worldview, yet none having produced the concise and necessary train of thought that each or most of those philosophical explorations need to reach some 'final conclusion.' In actuality, more philosophical thought is spent on why others who do not conform to a specific pattern of contemporary thought are wrong than actually trying to get at 'truth.'

The current rationale appears to bubble up from the crude that truth, once thought by many to be absolute, is now thought not to be. Why, one might ask? Because no one yet has been able to prove it (absolute truth) in the rationale of human reasoning: thus it escapes proof because the human mind cannot embrace it. But study of the variant rationales is a lifetime task for many, assuming much, but proving nothing. One might say, in that vein of thought, that nothing might prevail, were it not for obvious considerations such as how these clumps of clay can function in abstract fashion while oblivious to a reality that faces each and all of us- that of how to deal with the end of our temporary nature.

Let us start with an absolute truth. All mortals die. There is no amount of rationalizing, reasoning, argumentation or empathic circumvention; nor do we need to make religious affirmation of its reality: there is truth.

Now, let us make a leap. Israel represents a truth. Ah, one might ask, where is the nexus to making that claim: is it not a religious statement to say that Israel represents a truth? Ask this: does Israel exist? Is that not at least an existential statement; a truth? After all, even in its current non-religious functional state (no matter how the Hasidim want to say it is otherwise), its government has apparent function independent of its Scriptural implications. So, even in a modern form of secular statehood (would Hertzl be proud?), Israel exists.

Next, let us move to a more difficult aspect, one that has been approached over and over and over again: is there an absolute truth regarding if there is, or is not a Deity? To whom do we turn to answer that one?

Humanism has it easy in that regard; all they need say is no, whether in atheistic terms, or less convincingly, agnostically. There is no loss of Gnosticism or skepticism that fills libraries. Religious observances in the other extreme of that question abound. We'll not explore that at any great length, for repetition can be a bore. It can be boiled down to belief or not.

Now there are evidences that at some point in ancient times, belief in a being outside of the human realm of consciousness has usually been a part of the societal structure. There are the pyramids, both Egyptian and Mayan, etc., and there are various other religious appearing structures worldwide, all with inferences and implicit references of a religious nature. Less bold in such an affirmation are the various steles of all sorts of religious associations of times past, speaking to us in silence that humanity has always had trouble with the supernatural. In there somewhere many have proffered the basis of the supernatural, and of the implications of mankind's failure to recognize the impact that could have.

Going further into history, there are the remnants of ziggurats in Iraq, for which there is no recent competent rationale to explain; but conjectures abound. Yet that one ties to a very interesting observation, that it does have a connection to the one form of religious observation many try to ignore, that of the basis for the religious belief s held to be by the antecedents of secular Israel. Is it monotheistic? That depends upon one's apologetics. Yet, since Israel exists, and there are evidences that Israel's precedent manifestations of a religious nature abound, it bears noting that Israel's part in this cannot be ignored, only the methodology employed as it deviates from the Scriptures. To take it a step further, if we are to conclude that the Islamists are convinced that their claim to the 'Temple Mount' needs perfecting over the existence of Israel, then the existence of Israel needs explaining better than the quickly dismissed former national status so many want to ignore or explain away.

Therein lays a truth; that rationalism and arguments of enlightenment lead to some reasoning of human logic saying we need to ignore absolute truth; that even further in such reasoning it alleges we need to develop a more rationalized query against absolute truth leading towards a relativism that can humanly explain those things which we do not understand otherwise. If there is an impossibility, this is it; for that would mean we have enough of an understanding of absolute truth in order to define it well enough to provide the argument against it. Instead, it has to be admitted that human reasoning cannot come to the logical conclusion of absolute truth, for absolute truth does not fit the rationale of human reasoning.

An understanding of absolute truth, if it is desired to be known, must have a basis for beginning the search. If we acknowledge that human reasoning does not attain to that desire, let alone attempt to embrace it, then the search must, of a necessity, reach outside the realm of limited human understanding and find the source. Once the source is determined, then the beginning of understanding can lead to its further development, though doing so outside the realm of human logic.

But, returning to an earlier assertion, the fact of the matter is that human logic cannot be employed to understand that absolute truth is necessary when considering the issues and circumstances regarding Israel in any capacity, whether in its former theocratic existence before the institution of Saul as King, as the Davidic kingdom in its heyday, or subsequently in its post exilic circumstances during the Roman times of Yeshua's first appearance to the secularly infused times preparatory to Yeshua's second appearance. This begs a question; that of why does Islam seek to oppose Israel based upon arguments using reasoned human logic and 'enlightened' rationales? Is this not what foments all the issues the world has in its endeavor for world peace? A conclusion one might draw from this is that as long as human rationalism is used to attempt a peace at the cost of Israel's sovereignty, there can never be peace.

Why is that? Because until humans are resolved to come to terms with absolute truth, peace does not come until such resolution is made. The caution to be observed here is that each individual must come to those terms before the absolute truth of that final moment over takes each one of us in our mortality.

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