A Christian Reads the Tao te Ching
A Christian Reads the Tao te Ching
Know that you don't know! / Ecclesiastes as Taoist confession (chapter 71)
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Chapter 71 is cryptic, obscure, and one of my absolute favorites. This chapter continues the theme on knowledge from the previous chapter, but focuses especially on ignorance - the fact that we are all ignorant in so many ways, and that not knowing that we don't really know is not just bad, it's a spiritual sickness. I open with a confession of my own ignorance, then divide my interpretation into three sections:
1. Simple knowledge and personal development - Know how much you don't know, or you will stagnate
2. Social/relational knowledge in a world of information-overload, echo chambers, polarization, and confirmation bias
3. The spiritual dimension - I draw in a few passages to show the Bible's ambivalent stance on "knowledge", and then do a short analysis of the book of Ecclesiastes as sort of a Taoist confession/tract/autobiography. This is my personal favorite part!
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