Renaissance: the Onset of Spirituality?

A discussion of past and recent world events (from the historical period after Christ, e.g. Renaissance). Let's unlock the lessons from the past events.

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bomohwkl
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Renaissance: the Onset of Spirituality?

Post: # 4072Post bomohwkl »

There are several periods of earth history that was "praised" by Thao. The most recent one is Renaissance.

It seems that the period of Renaissance has gone and we live in the world of technological and economically driven society.

Looking back at the onset of history, Renaissance was driven by
1.humanists who believed that each individual had significance within society.
2.fiercely independent, self-sufficient and combative urban people.
3.believed that beauty was the path of god.
4.most of them were aristocrats or closely related to them.

I cannot resist the idea that this forum could pave the way of new Renaissance. It is just getting to KNOW how and what are the things that require before taking into an intellectual and ideological movement.
Last edited by bomohwkl on Sat Aug 13, 2005 4:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Yothu
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Re: Renaissance-the onset of spirituality?

Post: # 4075Post Yothu »

bomohwkl wrote: 3.believed that beauty was the path of god.
That is certainly true.

"Renaissance", which is the french translation of the latin word "renascere", means rebirth.
There is wonderful music and architecture of that epoche.

Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750); Ger., for example, wrote famous cantatas. Check it out!
This one is with the famous Vienna Boys Choir.

In comparison with medieval music, Renaissance harmony was more unrestrained and more expressive. During the Renaissance began a change of status for composers of music in society thanks to the growing emphasis on individualism. Unlike their medieval predecessors, Renaissance composers were recognized more often during their lifetimes. The repertoire of instrumental music became more varied. Instrumental works were largely short polyphonies, or dancing music. The rich courts and civic governments of the Renaissance supported music to a degree not previously seen. This level of musical support was also provided by the religious institutions of the day.

"Renaissance composers also incorporated the classics into their craft. By studying Greek drama, they discovered the art of making their music reflect the lyrics in their songs--making music sound happy for words of joy and sorrowful for words of grief. When they learned that ancient Greek drama (which featured music) brought the audience to tears with its sad music, Renaissance composers tried to re-create that theatrical experience. They didn't succeed, but their efforts resulted in the birth of opera." [1]

In Arthistory the epoche of Renaissance is the beginning of discovery and research - a general desire to evolve in order to understand more of nature - artist were not considered as workman but independant personalities as writers and poets.

I really like the architecture too. In Vienna we have a baroque church which is my favorite, the Karlskirche.

"In constructing churches, Renaissance architects no longer used the shape of a cross as a basis for their structures. Instead, they based them on the circle. Believing that ancient mathematicians equated circles with geometric perfection, architects used the circle to represent the perfection of God." [1]

___

[1] http://www.learner.org/exhibits/renaiss ... y_sub.html
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bomohwkl
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Post: # 4081Post bomohwkl »

The prime quality of Renaissance has been defined as "independence of mind". Its ideal was a person who, by mastering all branches of art and thoughts, need depend on outside authority for formation of knowledge,tastes and beliefs.

Renaissance humanism affirmed the autonomy of man and his freedom in the spheres of cultural creation, science and art. Herien lay its truth, for it was essential that creative force of humanity should surmount the obstacles and prohibitions that mediaeval Christianity put in its way. Unfortunately, however, the Resnaissance also began to assert man's self sufficiency and to make a rift between him and the eternal bibical truths. All the developments deriving from the Renaissance from Cartesian rationalism to Darwinian science, have been judged by fundamentalists to contrary to religion.

Education played a capital role in Renainssance thinking. The humanists knew that to create a NEW Man one had to start from schoolboys and students. The diificulty with the Scientific Revolution as with any fundamental shifts in human thoughts, lies in the fact that its precepts did not accord with pervailing ideas and practices. The highest virtue lay in restrain guided by a full understanding of the world and of self. Evil derived from the a lack of understanding. Blind faith was despicable. "The Will of God: was the refugue of igorance.
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Post: # 4093Post Yothu »

Voltaire - pseudonym of François Marie Arouet. French writer, of whom it is not known whether he actually practised vegetariansim, though his writings were clearly sympathetic to the idea.
Voltaire lived for 84 astoundingly productive years (1694-1778), wrote hundreds of works in almost all the literary, philosophical, and polemical genres current in his day, and left behind more than 20,000 letters.

According to Professor Kors, "his life both reflected and profoundly altered the movement we now call the 'Enlightenment.' He wrote in almost every literary genre—from light verse to epic poem, drama, narrative fiction, essay, dictionary, philosophical treatise, and scientific popularization—and virtually created a genre, the 'philosophical tale,' in which he has remained most alive for posterity."
from: http://www.teach12.com/ttc/Assets/cours ... ns/452.asp
Philosophical Dictionary wrote:How pitiful, and what poverty of mind, to have said that the animals are machines deprived of understanding and feeling . . .
Judge (in the same way as you would judge your own) the behaviour of a dog who has lost his master, who has searched for him in the road barking miserably, who has come back to the house restless and anxious, who has run upstairs and down, from room to room, and who has found the beloved master at last in his study, and then shown his joy by barks, bounds and caresses. There are some barbarians who will take this dog, that so greatly excels man in capacity for friendship, who will nail him to a table, and dissect him alive, in order to show you his veins and nerves. And what you then discover in him are all the same organs of sensation that you have in yourself. Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may he incapable of suffering?

Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and acrid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways.

The treatise of Porphyry is addressed to one of his old disciples named Firmus, who became a Christian, it is said, to recover his liberty to eat flesh and drink wine. He remonstrates with Firmus, that in abstaining from from strong liquors the health of the soul and the body preserved - lives longer, and with more innocence. All his reflections are those of a scrupulous theologian, of a true philosopher, and of a gentle and sensitive spirit. One might believe in reading him that this great enemy of the Church is a Father of the Church. He dues not speak of the metempsychosis, but he regards other animals as our brothers - because they are endowed with life as we are, because they have the same principles of life, the same feelings, the same ideas, memory, industry - as we. [Human] speech alone is wanting to them. If they had it, should we dare to kill and eat them? Should we dare to commit these fratricides? What barbarian is there, who would cause a lamb to be butchered and roasted, if that lamb conjured him, in an affecting appeal, not to be at once assassin and cannibal?
Traité sur la Tolérance wrote:People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines . . . It appears to me, besides, that [such people] can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different Voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel . . We know neither how these organs were formed, nor how they are developed, nor how they receive life, nor by what laws, feelings, ideas, memory, will, they are attached to this life and, in this profound and eternal ignorance inherent to our nature, we dispute without ceasing, we persecute one another, like bulls who *** against each other with their horns, without knowing why and how they have horns.
Extract from The Extended Circle by Jon Wynne-Tyson

What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature.
- Voltaire
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Post: # 4095Post Yothu »

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was born on June 28, 1712 in Geneva, Switzerland. His mother died shortly after his birth. When Rousseau was 10 his father fled from Geneva to avoid imprisonment for a minor offense, leaving young Jean-Jacques to be raised by an aunt and uncle. Rousseau left Geneva at 16, wandering from place to place, finally moving to Paris in 1742. He earned his living during this period, working as everything from footman to assistant to an ambassador.

Rousseau's profound insight can be found in almost every trace of modern philosophy today. Somewhat complicated and ambiguous, Rousseau's general philosophy tried to grasp an emotional and passionate side of man which he felt was left out of most previous philosophical thinking.

In his early writing, Rousseau contended that man is essentially good, a "noble savage" when in the "state of nature" (the state of all the other animals, and the condition man was in before the creation of civilization and society), and that good people are made unhappy and corrupted by their experiences in society. He viewed society as "articficial" and "corrupt" and that the furthering of society results in the continuing unhappiness of man.

Rousseau's essay, "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" (1750), argued that the advancement of art and science had not been beneficial to mankind. He proposed that the progress of knowledge had made governments more powerful, and crushed individual liberty. He concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship, replacing it with jealousy, fear and suspicion.

Perhaps Rousseau's most important work is "The Social Contract" that describes the relationship of man with society. Contrary to his earlier work, Rousseau claimed that the state of nature is brutish condition without law or morality, and that there are good men only a result of society's presence. In the state of nature, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men. Because he can be more successful facing threats by joining with other men, he has the impetus to do so. He joins together with his fellow men to form the collective human presence known as "society." "The Social Contract" is the "compact" agreed to among men that sets the conditions for membership in society.

Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is considered a forebear of modern socialism and Communism (see Karl Marx). Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority.

One of the primary principles of Rousseau's political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve.

Rousseau's ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of book learning, and recommends that a child's emotions should be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience.

taken from: http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html
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brettmtl
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Post: # 8380Post brettmtl »

Good point bomohwkl

The renaissance period was also inspired by studying the ancient Greeks. If we go further back, the Greeks studied ancient Mu. Mu in Greek means unconditional love.

If we take this to its conclusion, by studying and remembering Mu we are in the process of rebirth.
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Post: # 12838Post teradactyl »

brettmtl wrote:Good point bomohwkl

The renaissance period was also inspired by studying the ancient Greeks. If we go further back, the Greeks studied ancient Mu. Mu in Greek means unconditional love.

If we take this to its conclusion, by studying and remembering Mu we are in the process of rebirth.
either way we need to revive 'mu' here on earth....where do we go from here to make it happen?
what are any of us doing to help improve the amount of people who are aware?
Om Mani Padme Om
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