violiner

To read a text as you would one in a modern language - look up words when you need to in order to understand a passage, learn what you can from context, etc. Do your best to read instead of translating - those are fundamentally different activities.

I'd like to reiterate that using interlinear translations or Loeb editions wasn't a contraindicated practice, per se. There are just certain problems inherent in the practice that we were advised to look out for. It is certainly a useful tool sometimes.

I think what it all comes down to is what I mentioned above: reading a text and translating a text are fundamentally different. Both require you to interpret a text, but translating a text - particularly an ancient text - require you to interpret it in more and in different ways. So if you're relying heavily on a translation to understand a text you're using tools that mediate between you and the original more than, say, a reference grammar and a lexicon.

I was cautioned against using this approach too much when I studied Classical Greek and Latin in college.

There are two potential problems, as I understand it. First, learning a language, particularly an ancient language, involves learning ancient words for things that have no analog in modern life, whereas translation involves mapping those very things onto their closest equivalent in a modern language. It would be too easy using the interlinear method to start thinking that the Greek word 'krater' means a bowl or cup, when really it is a specific type of bowl used for mixing wine. That can really only be learned by consulting a dictionary, and probably a few pictures.

The second issue is only really a problem for people who are particularly familiar with the text in translation - it's very very easy to start mentally reciting the translation you're familiar with instead of actually parsing the original text. This is one reason that Attic Greek is preferred to Koine (New Testament), even though Koine is generally simpler. Even a secular person usually has enough familiarity with the Bible to make this an issue.

I certainly wouldn't say that this method can't be used profitably, but rather that one should be careful not to fall into those particular traps. The same criticisms could be made to relying on the Loeb editions.

Also, minor nitpick: The New Testament isn't really written in Classical Greek, it's in Koine. Going from Koine to any classical dialect is going to be much more difficult than going from any classical dialect to Koine, due to the simplified grammar and vocabulary of Koine Greek.

You don't have to apologize to me - you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I disagree with you, though given the circumstances that certainly isn't unexpected.

Please bear in mind that the Temple of Thelema (where I assume you found the quote) is one of several Thelemic groups, and do not necessarily speak for everyone. Still I am genuinely curious as to what you find offensive about that particular statement. If you take the Great Work as the perfection of the individual (which I do) I don't see what could possibly be wrong with that.

If you really think that Thelema is designed to 'erode the reason and instill faith' you are mistaken, but you can't be faulted for thinking that for a brief internet search. Any philosophy is complex, and the things that you're most likely to see first are the more sensational aspects, and those do appear superstitious.

As far as justification for my epistemology I didn't offer that because it doesn't exist. Thelema is not the basis of my epistemology, my experience is. Thelema is how I describe and relate to that experience.

In any case, I don't really hope to or desire to convince you - that's not particularly important. Just hoped to express myself a little more clearly, have some dialogue, and try to understand what you find offensive about the quote.

The justification, at least for me, is in the approach that Thelema as a whole takes towards religious experience, and in the experience I've had with the Book of the Law. The perspective of this particular Thelemite is that the Book of the Law is the product of one man's religious experience, and that book has been very useful in the personal and spiritual development of myself and others. I don't think the value of the book is it's provenance, whether that be human or divine. I find that it's value is in the ethics of personal liberty that it articulates and insofar as it serves as a means of my own growth.

There's a phrase you'll hear sometimes in Thelema: "The method of science, the aim of religion." This might appear at first to be absurd, but if you consider religion to be the process whereby we obtain genuine and personal spiritual experiences it makes perfect sense. You experiment, you keep records, you evaluate your results and seek to have the same kinds of experiences. I think that this attitude, when it's present, is what separates Thelema apart from other religions.

I can't speak to hardware, but there's certainly a certain similarity between occultism/esotericism and creating software - you have to be comfortable thinking about and working with things that, in a sense, don't exist. That doesn't mean they're not useful in their own way. It means that they don't have objective reality in the same way that a lake or a car or a building does.

As one of those OTO tech people I was excited to see this here, but a little disappointed that there wasn't any description of what Thelema is about - basically (elevator speech explanation follows) a religion of discovering who you are and being that person. The references to hedonism and the 'darker side of magic' without the context that these are means of self discovery and acknowledging the darker side of existence comes across as sensationalist, at least to me.