Prgamatist, thanks for your response.
Pragmatist said:
It does concern itself with what could loosely be called "self-knowledge" and since nobody can access the "self" of any other person there is no way to say what "knowledge" has been gained from it.
I used to be a Buddhist, many moons ago. I became disenchanted because I really thought there was some actual usefulness to be had.
I really thought that it was a "map" of the mind and that the Buddah and the various teachings of others had described a way to cross the mind and reach a point of clear understanding and self-control.
In the end it seemed to me nothing more than metaphors and a lot of meditating.
Not that this is bad or wrong, it was just, well, getting me nowhere. I should have known that such knowledge could not be had so simply - it takes real hard work and real study along with age and experience.
What dogma? ..snip.. The Buddha encourages critical thinking and skepticism.
Yes and no. For intellectual thinkers such as yourself, it can seem that way. For the mass of followers it's just the stories and the rituals. Again, not a bad thing; Buddhism has to be the most moral Religion under the sun - I know of no slaughters done in the name of Buddah. That is quite something.
And as for karma and rebirth they are not what most people think they are. There is no "soul", the same person is not "reborn". There are some profound metaphors in use that can confuse casual observers, but not anyone who studies it properly.
As you say - I never did "grok" this part of it all. Again, my own logical mind obviously stuffing up great information that is just too subtle for it.
A message to Religion: please call a spade a spade!
All I tried to do is point out that the realm of the rational is not all-encompassing, that there are areas that can exist beyond the reach of reason. That is entirely different to whether any such things exist in such areas. All I tried to point out is that I believe that religion is not something that falls within the scope of the rational.
This is the meat of it. God of the Gaps.
Sure the "realm" of the rational is not all-encompassing. But the more we discover, the more turf it covers.
That which is "outside" the rational is merely the unknown as of now. Tomorrow - who knows?
The mistake that humans make is to prematurely assign reasons for things that are unknown. Thus we have all kinds of complex metaphysics explaining the mind (Buddhism for example), UFO's (Space Aliens), Ghosts (Whatever goes bump), chance (psi etc).
All I'm trying to say is that experience that we grant to Religion (wordlessness, meditation et al) should be called what it is: unknown as of now. Why ascribe all kinds of hypothesis before the facts?
Is a map the same as the territory it describes? Our reason and knowledge is a map, a model, a description. If you communicate with someone you can tell them about a place - but you cannot pass them the actual place (or the direct experience of the place) via communication. In other words you can give them a copy of the map, but you can't give them the place itself. But don't take my word for it, think about it yourself. For "map" take logic, reason and words and then look at the following questions.
Can a map ever be made so comprehensive that if I pass you that map, it is exactly the same as if you directly experienced every aspect of that place yourself? Does it make a difference whether the map covers every square inch of the territory? Does passing you a map become more like the experience if I make sure that I reach and describe (in words, equations, whatever) the very lowest level of every thing that exists in that place, right down to the last atom/quark/neutrino, whatever?
If the answer is that the map can never be equivalent to direct experience of the territory (remember the "map" can be any form of words, reason or logic) then wouldn't it be fair to say that the territory itself is ultimately "unspeakable" i.e. that the direct experience of it can never be communicated by words etc., alone? And if that is the case, then as far as the map goes, what does it matter how detailed it is?
A good argument - but something rings hollow.
If it were not for maps, how would we ever get anywhere? It seems the map and the experience go hand in hand. Without the map, whence the experience? And how do you guage what you are experiencing?
Sure, experience may come first, the map second and by degrees we push the edges of the world away. But, without the map, the experience is mere anecdote.
Yes - I would say that the more accurate and high-res our maps - the better we will be at surviving and mapping even further.
I reckon our maps will eventually encompass the "fuzzy" subjects like Art and Creativity and even Religion. What humans will be like at that point, I don't know - certainly unrecognizable to the insane bunch we are right now
Do art and imagination depend solely on logic and reason? ..snip.. but irrational as in not necessarily subject solely to logic and reason. Does religion depend solely on logic and reason?
By now I am seeing that words are slippery things. When I say "logic" and "reason" I mean a large body of tools that help us to define what is real (map making tools).
Again - it's about premature assignation (sounds kinky
) Art is assigned the label irrational. Religion is too. This seems to me to be a mere device to try and explain that which is unknown.
Why can't we simply leave it as unknown?
I don't know where ideas come from. Will we ever know? Perhaps. I don't know right now. Is it Voodoo? Is it Shiva? Is it the self-reflecting mirror? Is it the body thetans? Is it the crystals on my forehead? Bah! Let's just drop all that and say "Search me!", and then keep searching.
You answered your own question anyway, you switch off your "didactic, logical self". Therefore your painting does not depend on didactic, logical reasoning. And you are not a true skeptic according to BSI because you suspended your skepticism. Bad, very bad! 
I am definitely not a "True Sceptic"
I am way to flawed for that. Inconsistent and illogical for sure!
Still, I would say that my painting does depend on
some kind of eventually explainable interaction of elements that are now, or will soon be, on the map of science - no need for any other hypothesis!
Now does the possibility that the skeptic in question may do something like kneel to a deity as a private, personal, practice, make him incapable of realising the obvious such as above? And if so, why?
To me it's high farce. It's the Black Knight guarding the way trying to bite the legs off his opponent when he is reduced to a limbless torso.
It's a priest decrying sin, wearing stockings.
I know a man who is a very capable computer programmer. He used this logical, rational talent to write a programme to do Astrological predictions. I saw his code. He has stock phrases like "You will succeed in this." (not exact, I am trying to recall) assigned into a large array...
Words fail me. It's not the planets and the mumbo-jumbo energy. It's a bloomin' array and a random index.
Maybe it's the contradiction. The contrast. To me, when you make bold enough to play with the tools of logic and reason, you also take-on a responsibility. This is to take good care of the tools, to show them proper respect.
You can't build a house and leave the roof off.
