You misconstrued what I said...I said, "approach to fighting...Avoid it if you can...." I don't see how raping a little girl relates in any way to defending yourself.rusmeister wrote:I'm constantly struck by the assumption people hold that spirituality is essentially a necessary good. To me it is obvious that it can be equally an evil spirituality as a good one; in fact, I find it far more likely that if there is any truth to our lives (which there logically must be) then if spirits (something far more concrete and honest than a nebulous "spirituality") are pulling people in different directions, then most of them must not be good, however fair-seeming the direction.Seven Words wrote:just now got back to this thread....Hashi Lebwohl wrote:From what I have read about spirituality, most forms of it err on the side of being non-violent. A fundamental tenet of most faiths is "do not harm others" and violence clearly violates this tenet.
Even most martial art forms, many of which include elements of spirituality, train the student to use only as much violence as is needed to defuse a situation. Throw an attacker --> if he gets up and attacks again then hurt him a little --> if he continues to attack then make sure he feels it --> if he continues to attack then maim/cripple him --> if he continues to attack then make sure he cannot continue anymore, preferrably by knocking him out.
The martial art I practice does NOT ascribe to "minimum necessary violence". Cimande styles of Pencak Silat assume ANY need to defend yourself your life is on the line. The emphasis is to do maximum damage in minimum time, as 1-on-1 is the exception rather than the rule. Thus, the emphasis on destructions....knee-breaker kicks...impaling punching fists onto elbow point to break hand...takedowns with arm holds to separate the shoulder. As you progress, less permanently crippling methods are taught, which are derived from the brutal basics. Rather than joint breaks, more precise muscle destructions.... then on to nerve strikes.
And to not thread derail....we are a very spiritual style. We develop the "Warrior Mind", or "Combat Trance", where our killer instinct (to use the western psychological term) is brought to the fore, and even projected. W project our spiritual energy (well, the advanced level people do) into our strikes, to damage our opponents body AND the flow of their energy.
This mentality, this approach, turns a lot of people off of our style. *shrug* I am VERY comfortable with this approach to fighting...."Avoid it if you can, if unavoidable do EVERYTHING to win."
But in any event, the assumption that spirituality is a good thing is not rational.
On "do EVERYTHING", I can imagine quite a few unambiguously immoral acts in that word, such as raping helpless little girls, etc. So there has to be a moral qualifier.
Let me add, since it didn't get addressed, that I consider ALL humans to have been born tainted. We are NOT glorified animals. We are broken gods. We are Fallen and are less than what we ought to be. But I do not consider anyone to be born 'especially' tainted.
If there IS a struggle between good and evil, then organization in the name of good is obviously better than its absence, though it is granted that an evil religion could also be organized. Looks like that word "organized" is treated as an unqualified negative around here.
I don't use the word organized as an unqualified negative..I consider it a warning sign, indicates a potential and a tendency to negativity. Very strongly correlated. But not a predictor.
