Now that Iran bastards are in spotlight again….focus is on : Coming of the 12th Imam.

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD143607

January 25, 2007	No.1436
Waiting for the Mahdi: Official Iranian Eschatology Outlined in Public Broadcasting Program in Iran The website of the governmental Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has posted a lengthy document titled “The World toward Illumination.” The document is a transcript of an IRIB series on the imminent arrival of the Mahdi, the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, awaited by Shi’ites as the Messiah

  is a manifestation of God’s glory and beauty. Imam Mahdi is the perfect human being. His behavior is praiseworthy and his manners immaculate. He is the embodiment of justice. His torch of guidance is for all mankind…

“In short, when he reappears, peace, justice and security will overcome oppression and deceit and one global government, the most perfect ever, will be established. He will make the earth prosper in a way in which no ruins will remain. Man’s maturity will reach its height, full equality will be established among the people, and no one will be arrogant toward the other and will not try to dominate others.

Socrates prayer in Phaedrus dialogue

 i just read this briliant piece:

 ”…..Dear Pan, and all you other gods who live here, grant that I may become beautiful within, and that whatever outward things I have may be in harmony with the spirit inside me. May I understand that it is only the wise who are rich, and may I have only as much money as a temperate person needs. — Is there anything else that we can ask for, Phaedrus? For me, that prayer is enough”

Do the Impossible: Know Thyself by Theodore Dalrymple

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=5863&sec_id=5863

this is the classic. On one hand you find neuroscientisc, who present themselves as a modern Prometheus meets LaMettrie.  Theese guys are just pathetic and so naive. And on the other you have got honest intellectuall (Dalrymple) , so tied up in modernity, that  altough he seeks , he cant his way out of it.  He resigns in the face of it.

This is a true “El tema de nuestro tiempo”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset

i dont pretend to have an answer  (yet ) , but one thing i know both of them are going in th wrong direction

Way before Hume

That there are many who persuade themselves that there is a difficulty in knowing Him is due to the scholastic maxim that there is nothing in the understanding which has not first been in the senses; where the ideas of God and the soul have never been.

r.descartes

i cant decide for years if this reasonong is false or not

added that, since I knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the only being who existed, but that there must of necessity be some other being, more perfect, on whom I depended, and from whom I had acquired all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone and independent of all other, so that I had of myself all this little whereby I participated in the Perfect Being

THE INTELLECTUAL CRISIS……Rene Descartes

I had been nourished on letters from my infancy, but as soon as I had finished the customary course of study, I found myself hampered by so many doubts and errors that I seemed to have reaped no benefits, except that I had observed more and more of my ignorance. Yet I was at one of the most celebrated schools in Europe, and I was not held inferior to my fellow-students, some of whom were destined to take the place of our masters; nor did our age seem less fruitful of good wits than any which had gone before.
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so, when he is too curious concerning what went on in past ages, he is apt to remain ignorant of what is taking place in his own day. I set a high price on eloquence, and I was in love with poetry; I rejoiced in mathematics, but knew nothing of its true use.
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I revered our theology, but, since the way to heaven lies open to the ignorant no less than to the learned, and the revealed truths which lead thither are beyond our intelligence, I did not dare to submit them to my feeble reasonings.
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Hence, as regarded the opinions that I had received into my belief, I thought that, as a private person may pull down his own house to build a finer, so I could not do better than remove them therefrom in order to replace them by sounder, or, after I should have adjusted them to the level of reason, to establish the same once more.
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believed that I should find sufficient these four precepts:

THE first was never to accept anything as true when I did not recognize it clearly to be so – that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice, but to include in my opinions nothing beyond that which should present itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I might have no occasion to doubt it.

The second was to divide up the difficulties which I should examine into as many parts as possible, and as should be required for their better solution.

The third was to conduct my thoughts in order, by beginning with the simplest objects, so as to mount little by little, by stages, to the most complex knowledge, even supposing an order among things which did not naturally stand in an order of antecedent and consequent.

And the last was to make every where enumerations so complete, and surveys so wide, that I should be sure of omitting nothing

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http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/descartes2.htm

Marcus Aurelius Meditations …excerpts

me, our minds being both extracted from the Deity; since no man can do me a real injury because no man can force me to misbehave myself

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a world without gods or Providence is not worth a man’s while to live in

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Think upon nothing but what you could willingly tell about, so that if your soul were laid open there would appear nothing but what was sincere, good-natured and public-spirited. A man thus qualified is a sort of priest and minister of the gods, and makes a right use of the divinity within him.

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 in the whole compass of human life, you find anything preferable to justice and truth, temperance and fortitude, or to a mind self-satisfied with its own rational conduct and entirely resigned to fate, then turn to it as to your supreme happiness. But if there be nothing more valuable than the divinity within you, if all things are trifles in comparison with this, then do not divide your allegiance. Let your choice run all one way, and be resolute for that which is best. As for other speculations, throw them once for all out of your head.

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 One’s own heart is a place the most free from crowd and noise in the world if only one’s thoughts are serene and the mind well ordered

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If understanding be common to us all, then reason, its cause, must be common, too. And so also must the reason which governs conduct by commands and prohibitions be common to us all. Mankind is therefore under one common law

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action is the end of your being….Shall not a man act like a man?

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Some men, when they do you a kindness, ask for the payment of gratitude; others, more modest, remember the favour and look upon you as their debtor. But there are yet other benefactors who forget their good deeds; and these are like the vine, which is satisfied by being fruitful in its kind and bears a bunch of grapes without expecting any thanks for it. A truly kind man never talks of a good turn that he has done, but does another as soon as he can, just like a vine that bears again the next season.
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Throw me into what climate or state your please, for all that I will keep my soul content

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 How fulsome and hollow does that man seem who cries: ‘I’m resolved to deal sincerely with you!’ Hark you, friend, what need of all this flourish? Let your actions speak. Your face ought to vouch for you. I would have virtue look out of the eye no less apparently than love does. A man of integrity and good nature can never be concealed, for his character is wrought into his countenance.
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I have often wondered how it is that everyone should love himself best and yet value his neighbour’s opinion of him more than his own

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Meditations

Marcus Aurelius
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/marcusa.htm

Definition of human nature (E. Fromm in Escape from Freedom)

the fundamental approach to human personality is the understanding of mans relation to the world, to otheres, to nature an to himself. We belive that a man is a primarily a social beeing nad not as Freud assumes, primarily self-sufficient and only secondarily in need of others in order to stisfy his instinctual needs…..key problem of psychology is that of the particular kind of relatedness of the individual toward the world, not that of satisfaction or frustration of single instinctual desires.

more human nature quotes  at www.absolutelymine.com