Do Vulcans have a Religion?

[Asso]

I have read the posts on this thread. My impression is that, in the attempt to demonstrate that Logic could allow Vulcans to not have Religion, this logic is unconsciously made nearly a Religion.

[Silverbullet]

Thank you all. Is Nirvana a continued meditative state? One has turned inward to the exclusion of worldly problems. You say that Monks meditate for hours trying to reach this state of Nirvana.

Isn't that a bit selfish? they aren't doing the world a blind bit of good. They don''t share what they have found with anyone. Just concetrate on themselves. The Tibetans isolate themselves in their monestaries only going out to beg food.

T'Pol meditates using a candle to handle the daily stress. But she comes out of it better able to handle that stress. She is useful. She is meditating so she can become useful to herself and others. I can see that. But if it comes to a point where she can not function withouut Meditating she is becoming less useful to her duties. If she breaks down because she has not mediatted she would be a problem especially if she was in a critical spot where she needed to focus all of her aillities.

I am just thinking out loud as it were.

I doubt if in my working life and raising a family if I could have devoted hours to meditation. Life has this nasty habit of intruding.

Christian monestaries are somewhat similar. The monks have seperated themselves from the secular world. They try to be self sufficient. Great. I realy fail to se the usefullness of it.

The Dali Lama (sp) has had to come out of his world out into the securlar to promote the survival of his world.

However, I do find what you all have said so far very intersting. It is just that I am not sure I competely understand.

[Alelou]

I think monastic life of all types is kind of weird, personally -- for Christian monks, the rigors and loss of sleeping hours involved in their rituals makes it seem like a fairly brutal cult, to me -- but I believe that both traditions believe that meditation/prayer can do good in the world by influencing God or spreading good karma or whatever (though I doubt very much that Vulcans would think that).

Also, monks generally have some role to play in society, whether it is making music, growing medicinal herbs, making wine, creating documents, safely parking younger sons who have nothing to inherit, or whatever...

And not all monks are cloistered. Many go out into the world and help the poor, etc.

I don't personally feel that meditation is religious, or has to be religious. It's just a healthy state you can get your brain to that does you some good. And twenty minutes or so is all you really need, especially once you're good at it.

[Asso]

I don't personally feel that meditation is religious, or has to be religious. It's just a healthy state you can get your brain to that does you some good. And twenty minutes or so is all you really need, especially once you're good at it.

I agree, but it doesn't work with me. I am too much impatient.

[Thot]

I think this situation is a good example for an "anachronism": An attempt to use a word to grasp the situation in some words, but it doesn't fit completly, because those used words have for the most part additional connotations, which don't suit.

For example: If you understand religion as a setting of fundamental believes, which define your perspective of the world, then it fits. But if you understand it as a feeling of trust in an entity, a cosmic concept, the "mojo" which holds the universe together, then rather not.
That both variants have ignorant/bigot/narrow-minded ways and open-minded approachs is quite evident.

The word "anachronism" was orginally only used to identify a thing, which doesn't fit into a certain time, but nowadays it is also used to describe a case, where someone tries to push a concept into a word, which simply doesn't suit it.

So, what do you do with an anachronism?
1) Simply don't use the word.
2) Use it, but make sure, that everybody involved knows, what is meant with it.
3) Try to find another/a new word.

Christian monestaries are somewhat similar. The monks have seperated themselves from the secular world. They try to be self sufficient. Great. I realy fail to se the usefullness of it.

Well, I could start to point out in details, how the actual historical facts disagree with this, but suffice to say, that monestaries from the Middle Ages until around 1800 in Europe always worked as the "social net of benefits" for the poor, old and ill people. So in the essence, these accusations of being useless were mostly made by people, who regarded support for people in misery as a waste of time, energy and money. Just look up the attitude from some of the so called "enlightened" philosophers or rulers of the 17th and 18th century concerning to bother yourself with the lower classes: It gives you the creeps.

In addition the monks worked as fire departments or as supporter at environmental disasters like floods or they were linked with schools and universities for educational goals or organized the big holidays in a city/settlement etc.

I'm completly aware, that are also negative examples, but the huge majority of the people in former times would clearly disagree with the assessment, that monks and monestaries are there for isolation but aside from this useless.

For sure, there was the tendency of some monks, who didn't want to get involved with the world around them and wanted to accomplish isolation from their environment, but for one they were the huge minority of the monks, two they ended mostly as lonely ascetics, because isolation and being surrounded by at least a dozend other people doesn't fit too well, or three they established a monestary with those ideals, but not later than three generations after the foundation of the group they had nearly the same attitude about involvement of the world as the others.

I mean, the lead motto for all christian orders is "Ora et labora!" => "Pray and work!" and not "Pray and isolate!"

From my point of view, Vulcan priest have far more work to do then simply contemplaiting about the ways of logic: Conducting weddings/kali-fee, rituals for funerals/birth, give advise for peoples' normal life and so on. There was this one episode at Voyager, where Tuvok and Paris were stucked in an anomaly together with a girl: she was interested in Tuvok but he gave her the cold shoulder and there were some flashbacks into his youth, where he consulted a priest after falling in love with an alien girl.
I did't like this episode too much, because it didn't really explained, why Tuvok acted this way, aside from repeating the "Vulcans don't feel" theme, but at least it gives an example.

[Aikiweezie]

I don't think we're EVER going to have agreement on this because A) Religion is defined differently by different people and B) So is meditation.

In my martial art we practice a form of Zen meditation, and the point of it is to COMPLETELY empty your mind, or "empty the cup." In Japanese that's called Mushin, or "no mind." You are to let go of anger, fear and ego. It is the opposite of mindfullness. I struggle at it because my mind is very busy all the time.

It's just a personal thing but I think Vulcan meditation is a combination of both something like Mushin to calm and quiet the mind, and and doing some kind of exercises to deal with and supress emotional stuff that begins to poke itself into consciousness. Maybe like pdlsldl says the emotions are let go instead of dealt with, maybe that's more Vulcan, I don't know. Maybe one of T'Pol's problems is that she didn't or couldn't do this well and so her emotions remain closer to the surface than most Vulcans.

[Silverbullet]

Tbhot I am goinng to climb way out on a limb here. But wasn't it Lay Brothers who taught at the schools and Universities.

I do remember the tales of islolated Irish Monks who created the Book of Kells and made other Beautiful books with illuminated script. It had been calimed that they kept knowledge alive.

That is a bit of Horse Puckey. it was the Musims who transcribed from the Greek and who broght the concept of the Zero out of India who kept knowledte alive. They established universities im Muslim Spain which I have read the wealthy parents of Sons sent their kids to study at these Universities. However, it has been several decades since I studied this and my memory is no longer that sharp. I may be confusing things. Happens.

Anyway I believed that Monestaries were just the same they generally were isolated from the rrest of the world. On islands in God forsaken areas.

However, correct me, please.

SB

[Alelou]

I don't see any point in correcting you now when you've just discounted what Thot and I already said. We'd just be repeating ourselves.

[honeybee]

Some monasteries and convents are cloistered, others are not. It was the same in the Middle Ages.

I get the feeling that the P'Jem Monastery was cloistered and a place where the monks withdrew from the world.

If you read about Henry VIII's land & money grab that dissolved the monasteries, you'll see that it created social chaos because the abbeys did provide a social safety net. After the dissolution, many of the monks & nuns that once provided food and shelter to beggars became beggars themselves. Of course, some of the monasteries were corrupt and running relic/pilgrimage scams. But Henry VIII totally underestimated the amount of social good monasteries did, and this led in part to the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even his "obedient" wife Jane Seymour begged him to rethink his actions, and old Harry reminded his wife that her predecessor had lost her head. She took the hint.

[Thot]

I get the feeling that the P'Jem Monastery was cloistered and a place where the monks withdrew from the world.

Quite right, although this monastery also served the purpose of conducting rituals like the fullara (don't know how to write it: the memory surpressing ritual), at least as long as the VHC didn't misuse it for the spy relay.
Well, we could start argue about the purpose of something like this, but that's another topic.

If you read about Henry VIII's land & money grab that dissolved the monasteries, you'll see that it created social chaos because the abbeys did provide a social safety net. After the dissolution, many of the monks & nuns that once provided food and shelter to beggars became beggars themselves. Of course, some of the monasteries were corrupt and running relic/pilgrimage scams. But Henry VIII totally underestimated the amount of social good monasteries did, and this led in part to the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even his "obedient" wife Jane Seymour begged him to rethink his actions, and old Harry reminded his wife that her predecessor had lost her head. She took the hint.

Oh, that's a good example.

[Silverbullet]

Henry the VIII wasn't the only English king to grab monestaries and their money. Wars were expensive and the clergy were exempt from taxes so the King just took.

I don't know but I believe that the Movie "The Name of the Rose" depicted monestaries and Monks fairly accurately. Their "generosity" to the people.

But as you note, Thot, this wanders off the subject of this thread.

[honeybee]

Can you cite another example of a King dissolving all the monasteries in one go? I'm afraid I'm not as familiar with goings-on of the Reformation on the Continent. I do think that in what is now the Netherlands and Belgium, various monasteries were likely dissolved as the Reformation took hold. But I'm not sure of another example where a King had the power to dissolve every single abbey in his country at once and did so.

King Philip of France did have the Templars condemned as heretics and buggerers so he could take their wealth, inspiring a few hundred years of conspiracy theories.

The Name of the Rose was based on a novel by Umberto Eco, and the novel fairly accurate given Eco's background as a medieval scholar. However, it's a post-modern novel playing with semiotics and in that is a tribute to his idol, Borges. In this, it sets up a contrast between the intellectual as represented by the Franciscan monks and the anti-intellectual as represented by the Benedictines, who are the ones running the corrupt, evil monastery.

I agree, however, this is irrelevant in the sense that Vulcan monasteries would operate far more like Buddhist ones, rather than medieval ones. Although, Buddhist monasteries do minister to the poor, served as repositories for knowledge in a pre-internet world and offered refuge to the weary.

[Silverbullet]

Off topic fr a sec. I always liked the name of the guy played by connery: Thomas of Baskerville. Seeing as how that character was so much like Sherlock Holmes.

SB

[pdsldl]

Thot you are correct that my choice of Nirvana to get the point across is just that. The concept of nirvana is much more involved than mere meditation but it still captures the essence of the practice. Not all monks spend hours per day meditating but that is the goal. Not all Vulcans complete Kolinahr but for some that is the goal. My understanding is that those who choose to remain in a cloistered monastery to achieve the highest levels of awareness do so to teach others and to bring understanding and light into the collective consciousness of the world. I didn't delve much deeper into it as I was not interested in becoming a Buddhist just wanted to explore the basics of the practice. Others (monks and laymen) reach lower levels and operate out in the world to aid their fellow man but still require time away in the monastery, along with daily meditation, to maintain their clarity. And yes there are monasteries that are there for their followers to learn and grow and to enlighten others to follow the same path.

And i agree that Vulcan monasteries were most likely places for Vulcans to go for assistance in their struggle to follow Surak. Whether that meant having memories purged to return their minds to a more balanced state or taking the next step in purging their emotions or simply strengthening their training and control. Ceremonies may have been held there but that didn't seem to be a requirement otr maybe even the norm as T'Pol married in her mother's atrium. The priest being needed because of the bonding aspect of the marriage. The same would be true of other rituals like betrothal and births as all would have to include some level of a bond that required a learned priest to assist. Monasteries seemed to be quiet places of reflection and rejuvenation not religious as we would understand it; as well as; repositories of their past and the katras of their ancestors. If you look at the artifacts in P'Jem in 'the Andorian Incident' it was like a storage facility for those sacred artifacts. They didn't seem to put such things in museums like we do but still kept them maybe as a reminder of from whence they came and the need to continue their progress away from their past selves. My impression was always that the statues in those shrines and items like the the 'Stone of J'kah' were displayed/revered as representations of the foundation of Vulcan beliefs and were used to remind them of the path/need for a life of order and control the elder spoke of at P'Jem.

[Asso]

Vulcan monasteries were a way to go on with the Vulcan mysticism that seemed a good idea for those who started the series. It's clear that they (the monasteries) are the ultimate result of this mysticism, which was evidently some kind of desire in the heart of the Authors. It's a little difficult, though, that this mysticism can be a good match with Vulcan logic, in my mind.
Another contradiction. I ENJOY TO FIND THESE CONTRADICTIONS. They make Star Trek more and more Human (and, consequently, enjoyable).