Nara,
Your post #206 for reference:
You have credited me with the adjective "illustrious" and I want to live up to your judgment
1) There is no problem for me in accepting that Vedanta is Hindu philosophy (rather I am proud of that) and so is religious. I do not know about others views on this. But when I speak about epistemology, it is epistemology that is discussed in Vedanta. Vedanta minus SrimanNarayana or simply God can be a common ancient scripture of any religion in existence today. Christianity and Islam can own it. Only when an attempt is made to brand it(as you have done) with the tag called ‘religious text’ in which the word religion stands for a dogmatic or theological categorization, I disagree with you. If you read any Upanishad after removing whatever name of God is there in it you will realize the truth of what I say. The rest of your accusations about me being ashamed of my religion etc., I am leaving as just an outburst.
2)
If these texts present this knowledge in a very clear way, why then there is there so much quarrel about what it really means? These people have been squabbling among themselves for centuries and there is no sign of this abating, and the view they subscribe to is always that of their parents, with very few exceptions. Sounds like religion!! --these are your words.
It is clear to me while it is not clear to you and so we are arguing. Is it not so? It is like two advocates taking a dispute over the ‘right to preemption’ up to supreme court(in the preindependence era they used to go by ship to London to argue the case even in privy council). They spend a lot of their valuable time pouring over law books, past history of judgments, facts in hand etc. and keep arguing for years endlessly. In the process sometime one advocate may even die and still the case will continue to be argued by others. That is the human nature. This fact does not reduce the importance or relevance of the matter in dispute.
3)
Many of these ancestors themselves did not agree with each other about this metaphysics. There were several ஆஸ்திக மதம் as well as நாஸ்திக மதம். Whom among these an aspiring student full of intent, dedication, obedience, and all the wonderful prerequisites must turn to for true knowledge, an Advaitin, VA, Sankhya perhaps, or Charvaka? –your words again:
The aspiring student should study all that is available - advaitam, VA, Sankhya, Charvaka and every other branch that is available - and finally think about all that he has studied and reach his own conclusions. That is the process of knowledge acquisition. I am surprised that you have asked this question.
4
) It is claimed that Vedanta does not preach but teaches. This is the claim of all religious people. Bible is supposed to teach, Kuran is the best teacher there is. Also, how can one claim Vedanta does not preach? It makes so many demonstrably irrational and absurd claims that one can believe in them only on blind faith and that makes these claims nothing but preachings. Your words.
a)There was a time when the pratyaksha source of knowledge was depended upon to conclude that earth is flat. Later the same source found out that it is spherical in shape.
b)Similarly the pratyaksha and anumana sources of knowledge and reason were used to say that genes are the basic building block of all living beings. We have been using the genes to determine even the parentage of people. But recently scientists have found out that a living being can have genes of several ancestors all at the same time. Now people are trying to rewrite genetics.
c)Once we were having an axiomatic principle with which we built our geometry which said the shortest distance between two dots on a plane is a straight line. Now we all know that it is not a straight line.
So what was rational yesterday has become irrational today. What is rational today may become irrational in a hundred years. Did science teaching all these years involved preaching? If science which keeps changing its position with time was teaching, Vedanta is also teaching of a different kind. Now you have to tell me what are the absurd claims that have been made in Vedanta.
5
) And then they protest, but these are subjective matters, there is no possibility for empirical proof in metaphysics. Well, then, the only rational position to take is an agnostic one. In the absence of empirical proof hold your horses, don't let is race away with a multitude of assertions equal in certainty as 2 + 3 is 5. If you do, like the Vedic texts do, then it is religion we are talking about. –your words.
There are certain ultimate metaphysical questions to which empirical thought can offer no decisive answer. The fundamental question of that kind is about the existence of God. Empirical intelligence can offer no conclusive proof for the existence of God or for the non-existence of God. The significance of this impasse is that the idea of God is neither to be based on empirical reason nor to be discredited on that ground. Reason is powerless to prove and equally powerless to disprove. This philosophical position is what Immanuel Kant had brought out at the end of his
Critique of Pure Reason. This is a proof of the limitations of the empirical intelligence and the pure reason seeking to discover reality by its own light. If you want to call this impasse by the name agnosticism it is ok with me.
6)
There are only three sources of true knowledge, (i) direct observation, (ii) rational argument free of fallacies, and (iii) accumulated verified knowledge. Metaphysics must also operate within the confines of this epistemological limits. Anything that is based on what you guys have argued is by definition outside these limits and therefore, Vedantam is religion and nothing other than religion --your words:
As there is no dispute about i) and ii) let us take the iii). It is my contention that vedanta belongs to the third category more eminently than all the so called accumulated and verified empirical knowledge which you are arguing for. We are seeing every day how all these accumulated and verified scientific empirical knowledge is getting discredited and is being replaced by another set of verified knowledge. So taking a view from a higher level all these phenomenal knowledge or knowledge relative to time are not knowledge at all. Vedanta which is intuited knowledge is real knowledge. That takes us to intuition which is a subject in itself.
This subject is such that it needs a long and involved discussion which is not possible here. So only this much can be said here.
If your pramana called சப்தம் is science, my pramana called சப்தம் is Vedanta. I believe that thought when it is pure is in rapport with reality. This is the basis of all knowing and all apprehension of reality. All knowledge is intrinsically valid. No adventitious support or evidence , no alien quality of excellence is needed to invest knowledge with truth. Please think about it.