might have to religious ramble more

to some of you it may seem like i religious ramble a lot! I certainly do it more than many. But I inhibit a bunch of it.

I'll try now. Something safer at first.

I ground my religious exploration in study of the Good. Many hearing this, probably having absorbed some criticism of neoplatonism, think this involves studying something abstract/unknowable. So it looks like a bad intellectual activity.

I *am* studying a concept.

Some will already not be on board, thinking that this means I could not possibly be reaching God, if I'm studying a concept!

The concept is a way to see things better, though. See our circumstance better. Complex, but I can explain much w/ time!

(And I'm def not saying that a concept *is* God! It's premature to talk about God, I want to talk about the abstractness thing.)

'The Good' sounds abstract. When you try to consider it all at once, it seems abstract, floating. But it’s hard to see all the parts all at once.

This results from trying to consider it apart from the things it inheres in.

But when you touch your lover’s face, that is Good. A sandwich is Good, though not in the same way. Cool air, when you’re overheated, is Good. None is perfectly good, but each has some Goodness in it.

There's an interesting question: do the parts contain the whole? Does each good thing have Good 'in it'? (And what would this mean?) These are psychological questions - I think there's a real structure to concepts, meaning each such question has a factual, yes-or-no answer

In any case, when you go looking for the Good using a certain method, there's a chance you'll have ecstatic experiences at some point, realizing that Good shows up like... everywhere. And that it seems to disappear sometimes - as though our access is gated on confusion & despair.

In fact some traditions focus on the fact that the closer we get to What Is Actually The Case, the more our suffering disappears. I'm not a Buddhist but I note that they get some similar results. Mystics converge on some similar phenomena. No need to posit magic ofc. Just Mind.

Another pin I should add is to note that I, like Plato (lol) believe that, psychologically speaking, we're basically animated by the Good. This is compatible with naturalistic, physiological explanations of brains etc, at least those that don't write concepts out of the equation.

So, to wrap this mini explanation for now - I could say that I go after a few things:

To apprehend the Good (not just intellectually, but in a broader psychological sense)
To see it everywhere it concretely appears, psychologically & not
To follow it, as is my telos

This psychological program could fill a lifetime!

There's more I could add here about 'the Law' and similar ideas, and how 'truth we can't immediately apprehend' has an important relationship to the Good, and what it means to follow the Good IRL and not just 'psychologically'...

But, we'll save that for later.

More my writing on this broad topic if it's of interest: https://michaelcurzi.substack.com/p/4-atheist-meme-week-a-live-dissection