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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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It is coincidental that in the latest Times Literary Supplement (October 23 1015) Martin Kemp reviews Frank Wilczek's A Beautiful Question. Finding Nature's Deep Design and calls it 'a magnum opus on the secular theology of modern physics', refers to Wilczek's discussions of bosons, muons, gluons, leptons and electrons as being part of a 'Noah's Ark of particles', perhaps inevitably referring to Pythagoras, Plato, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and Einstein as 'prophets'.
I hope its coincidental! I confess to not knowing who Martin Kemp is but it makes me cringe to see anyone speak of science in this way. My skin crawls! No one should hold science in such awe. Reverence toward nature is fine. Feeling humility when confronting the vastness of our ignorance is natural. But I do not see how the analogy between subatomic particles and the creatures Noah brought onto his ark is supposed to work. Scientists model nature and attempt to predict (in order to test the model) the outcomes of designed experiments; they do not prophesy. But your point is well taken: obviously some people (like Martin Kemp) look to science as a new religion. I think they are terribly misdirected. I do hope Wilczek did not encourage him in this comparison.
Taking your points here somewhat out of order:
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Perhaps the other issue is how do core theories in science change, if at all, compared to core theories in religion? Is it so important for a Christian to believe in the Virgin Birth that not do believe it disqualifies one as a Christian? Is String Theory a core theory in science or a sham?
Newtonian Mechanics (not including his theory of gravitation) was certainly a core theory for three centuries. Although Descartes, Leibniz and Mach had philosophical differences with it, classical mechanics was not only self-consistent, its predictions were incredibly accurate. Not only was classical mechanics self consistent and consistent with observation, Laplace was serious in his suggestion that it was complete. But it wasn’t complete. A separate theory had to be developed to describe electrostatic phenomena and another to model magnetic phenomena; although it was fully expected those theories -when developed- would be consistent with classical mechanics. Unfortunately for classical mechanics, they weren’t. It was Einstein’s theory of special relativity that sorted out the inconsistencies. Classical mechanics is now seen to be an approximation with a known domain of application; it is not universally true. Is special relativity universally true? Probably not, but we don’t know.
Is String Theory a core theory? It’s a class of theories. Currently general relativity (Einstein’s theory of gravitation) seems to be at odds with quantum field theory. Various string theories resolve this conflict. However, computational difficulties make string theories difficult to deal with. This makes it difficult to use any string theory to make experimental predictions. To my knowledge, no feasible experiments have been proposed that would put string theory on the map or even distinguish one from another. If this situation persists, either the number employable string theorists will diminish or fundamental physics will become a more speculative and abstract endeavor.
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...I am trying to suggest that reverence is a factor here, that the reverence that is shown to science and what it has achieved, and what people believe it can achieve, can replace religion as a form of emotional and intellectual security. If not in 'the certainty of the resurrection', the certainty that these pills will stop the pain, that if I contract a disease, there will be a cure.
I would encourage people to revere one another and have a little less reverence toward science or religion. What I would ask people to do is take less on faith and attempt to understand the issues that matter to them. It’s difficult. I’m not a medical doctor: but I have one and I usually wind up taking her advice...not without question and not without doing a little research on my own. Even in my own field, I have to have faith in my colleagues: that they have done the experiments they’re reporting precisely as they have described and have made exactly the observations described.
The spate of crime scene investigation shows on U.S. television glorifies scientists, portraying them as geniuses with nerdy glasses and geeky tastes who work crime solving miracles. In real life the Washington Post (on April 18, 2015) ran the headline “FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades,” (you’ll have to google it - for some reason I can’t link it).
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Historically, the claims of science are outstanding in our times, not least because since Thomas Aquinas was charged with refuting science in favour of the word of God, science has proven to have practical solutions to practical problems that in the same period religion has failed to deal with in the same way. Thus more people put their faith in science, or should the word faith be banned as being inapplicable? It is perhaps not the core beliefs that interest, but the modalities of thought and feeling that mark the transfer of allegiance from a supernatural condition to one more humble and, dare one say it, temporary. None of which proves or disproves the existence of God, but may retire the fear.
If it isn’t blind, faith is a perfectly reasonable attitude one may have toward a person or even a principle. When I drive through the Tuscarora Mountain Tunnel in Pennsylvania I have faith in the principles of classical physics and geology (but not blind faith -you don’t have to have a Ph.D. or even a B.S to understand and enjoy learning a little bit about the physical world). But most of all I have faith in the geologists, surveyors, architects, engineers and workers who are directly responsible for the construction and continued maintenance of the tunnel -not that I know any of those people personally or professionally. I have faith that all of those people brought and continue to bring the same integrity to their jobs as I bring to my job. That faith, however, is also tempered with the knowledge that there are many pressures, political and financial, to cut corners, slacken maintenance schedules, etc. I see the growing fractures in the walls and hear the drops of water splattering on my roof and wonder if it isn’t time to reassess.
I would like us to have measured faith in each other and the projects in which we are engaged; a little less blind faith in gods, heros and their substitutes.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by trish;1645260
I hope its coincidental! I confess to not knowing who Martin Kemp is but it makes me cringe to see anyone speak of science in this way. My skin crawls! No one should hold science in such awe. Reverence toward nature is fine. Feeling humility when confronting the vastness of our ignorance is natural. But I do not see how the analogy between subatomic particles and the creatures Noah brought onto his ark is supposed to work. Scientists model nature and attempt to predict (in order to test the model) the outcomes of designed experiments; they do not prophesy. But your point is well taken: obviously some people (like Martin Kemp) look to science as a new religion. I think they are terribly misdirected. I do hope Wilczek did not encourage him in this comparison.
Martin Kemp is well known over here for his research and writing on art and science, I suspect the language he used which you don't like is in fact playful in a nice way, Martin does have a sense of humour and is generally urbane and well-dressed. You can read more about his work here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin...t_historian%29
http://www.martinjkemp.com/welcome.html
I think on the more substantive issues, the end result is that however we think of faith, of religion and science, we do not, or we no longer fear God. It is a negative element in that theology which concerns punishment rather than reward, which claims the 'wrath of God' is to be feared lest all manner of plagues be unleashed upon us. It may have once worked as a supernatural explanation of the plague, and some Christian and Muslim preachers still believe in it, but in fact knowing what we do diminishes God as a power as one wonders why the same God who loves us also wants to punish us in a most cruel way -rather like wondering why science has invented chemical and nuclear weapons with which to destroy human life in a disgusting, if near total manner.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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I think on the more substantive issues, the end result is that however we think of faith, of religion and science, we do not, or we no longer fear God. It is a negative element in that theology which concerns punishment rather than reward, which claims the 'wrath of God' is to be feared lest all manner of plagues be unleashed upon us. It may have once worked as a supernatural explanation of the plague, and some Christian and Muslim preachers still believe in it, but in fact knowing what we do diminishes God as a power as one wonders why the same God who loves us also wants to punish us in a most cruel way -rather like wondering why science has invented chemical and nuclear weapons with which to destroy human life in a disgusting, if near total manner.
Knocking on wood, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, blessing one who sneezes, making sacrifices and offering prayers seem like superstitious rituals performed not so much to ward off evil as to calm one’s anxiety about the evils the future might hold.
I suppose fundamentalists still have Satan as an out: God loves and Satan hates. God creates and Satan spoils. At least science never claimed to love us. In fact popular culture is filled with deranged scientists who are either bent upon mankind’s destruction or unwittingly engaged in an immoral project that will bring devastation upon us all.
Was Oppenheimer comparing himself to Lord Krishna when he exclaimed, “Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds?” To what extent was Lord Krishna giving unconscious voice to the author of the Bhagavad Gita?
In the end we are ones to be feared and the ones who need to be loved.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
trish
Knocking on wood, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, blessing one who sneezes, making sacrifices and offering prayers seem like superstitious rituals performed not so much to ward off evil as to calm one’s anxiety about the evils the future might hold.
Probably, in the western world, people usually learn these traditional habits in childhood. We do most of these things automatically without thought. Our parents (or parents' parents) may have learned to practice these things to ward off, what may have felt like, a more palpable evil to them at the time, but to us it may be more of a routine to bring us the comfort of 'belonging'...belonging to family or community, even if those ties are tenuous. In the case of saying Gesundheit after a sneeze...I think at this point it's just out of politeness without the recognition of reason.
I think religion and cults in the modern world are the same...a reason to belong to a group or community, with a built in social life...and if you follow the rules, you never really die.
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Originally Posted by
trish
In the end we are ones to be feared and the ones who need to be loved.
...and I take this out of context, but it certainly seems true that, quite often - the ones that need to be loved the most always need to be feared the most.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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...and I take this out of context, but it certainly seems true that, quite often - the ones that need to be loved the most always need to be feared the most.
Perceptive, and not out of context at all.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Just wondering where we had got to with this one
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbuck...-on-christmas/
Apparently not featuring Christian symbols on a cup during the holiday season is a war on Christmas. I can't say this is the only reason I'm an atheist, but viewing this nonsense does make me happy to be one. More pathetic, chauvinistic nonsense....when not giving preference to one group, even the majority is considered discrimination we are dealing with the expectation of hegemony.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
I dunno. Seems to me the blank red space stands for the absence of God and the obscenely burning passions of Lucifer...not to mention the Mermaid belongs to a ancient pantheon of Pagan creatures and demons that lured Greek sailors to their deaths. The swirled mountains of rich, thick, viscous, cream surmounting the brim in all defiance of gravity entice one and all to lick, slurp and devour its satanic virility. Get thee back Satan. I say: GET YE BACK IN THE NAME OF JESUS!
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
The Mermaid is there to seduce people of faith and people of reason, to make them weak and compliant to the desires of a woman grieving over her role in the death of her lover, seeking revenge through the sacrifice of willing victims. At one time the siren would position herself atop the mountain or a hill overlooking a river before a weir or a waterfall, beguiling sailors who, mesmerised by her beauty would ignore the peril ahead and tumble to their death.
Starbucks in America is thus the anti-Christ, the goddess of chaos holding out her blood-stained cup in mockery of Christ's sacrament, willing all to tumble into darkness.
I mean, have you tasted that stuff they call coffee?
Do not fear God, fear Starbucks.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
The death of Rene Girard prompts this useful summary of his ideas in the Telegraph obituary today (link with photos at the end). For some the argument that Jesus offered a quite different route out of the cycle of sacrificial violence is a key argument and though he was a Roman Catholic the idea does not emanate from the Church whose own history of violence is anything but what the master ordered.
"René Girard, the French-born philosopher and anthropologist, who has died aged 91, was once described as the “most compelling Catholic thinker of the age”; he was best known for his “mimetic theory” in which he elaborated a sweeping anthropology of religion.
Set out in his first major work, Deceit, Desire and the Novel (1966), the theory holds that human beings learn by imitating those around them , wanting to have what others have. This “mimetic desire” operates pervasively in all cultures, at once reinforcing social ties, but also fomenting envy, rivalry and conflict. “Mimesis,” Girard wrote, “is an unconscious form of imitation that invariably leads to competition, and desire is the most virulent mimetic pathogen.”
The idea was hardly new , but Girard went on to examine how societies at different times had sought to accommodate this destructive urge, while keeping the community together.
Primitive societies, wrote Girard, were rife with rivals struggling to outdo each other in terms of status and material possessions. This often produced tribal antagonisms that fostered cycles of revenge lasting many generations. But our ancestors also sought to maintain order through the occasional sacrifice of a collectively identified “scapegoat” or scapegoats – chosen, perhaps, because they looked different or thought differently from others.
The scapegoat would become the focus of communal hostility and would be sacrificed, often ritually, to rid the community of its fears. “There is an irresistible urge in human communities from time to time to purge themselves by choosing an innocent victim from among their ranks, on whom to blame all of their own faults and vileness,” Girard wrote.
In Violence and the Sacred (1972), however, Girard showed how once they are killed and peace returns, such sacrificial victims often become seen as “founding figures” of a society or religion, owing to the powerful mix of guilt and shame that remains in the collective memory: “The victim of a mob is always innocent, and collective violence is unjust.”
Girard described sacrificial violence as “the dark secret underpinning all human cultures” and the basis for many works of fiction and drama. In recent history this has been played out in the horrors of communism and fascism – and Islamist terrorism, a phenomenon Girard described as “mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale”.
But democratic societies, too, have their scapegoats – with elections often serving as a communal purgative. It is at least notable that the two British prime ministers who have acquired almost mythic status in the past century, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, were both victims of political “sacrifice” – Churchill in his 1945 election defeat and Margaret Thatcher in her deposition by her own party in 1990.
Girard saw religion not as the cause of violence , but as an often desperate attempt to resolve it, with biblical texts representing the development of a new consciousness which rejected scapegoating as an answer to society’s ills. Guided by their mimetic desires into rivalry with God, Adam and Eve set humanity on the path leading to Cain’s murder of Abel.
But the tenth commandment tells us not to “covet”, and in the story of Abraham and Isaac, an animal replaces the human sacrificial victim. In The Scapegoat (1982), Girard developed the idea that the Christian scriptures inaugurated a long process of questioning this founding violence. Jesus’s sacrifice is presented not as a means of appeasing an offended deity, but as an example of a loving God offering human beings liberation from this destructive cycle. The resurrection of the forgiving victim offers human life new foundations.
René Noël Théophile Girard was born in Avignon on Christmas Day 1923. His father was curator of the city’s Musée Calvet and later its Palais des Papes.
Following his father, Girard was educated at l’École des Chartres, a training school for archivists and librarians, writing his dissertation on marriage and private life in 15th-century Avignon. After graduation in 1947 he and a friend organised an exhibition of paintings at the Palais des Papes, which eventually turned into the annual Avignon Festival.
The same year, Girard moved to the United States to do a PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington, on “American Opinion on France, 1940-43”. He remained in America for the rest of his life, publishing more than a dozen books in French while teaching at American universities, most recently Stanford, where he became a professor.
A striking-looking man with deep-set blue eyes and a mane of grey hair, Girard wrote some 30 books, was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected to the Académie Française in 2005. He was also a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.
Girard is survived by his wife, Martha, and three children.
René Girard, born December 25 1923, died November 4 2015 "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-obituary.html
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Girard’s interpretation of the social function of Christianity is certainly a charitable one. Jesus’s sacrifice, in his view, breaks the violent sacrificial cycle that arises out of our mimetic desire to do what others do, have what others have, be treated as others are treated and apparently expel, kill or sacrifice those who, for one reason or another, do not properly express, as judged by the norms of their society, this allegedly universal human trait.
Unfortunately Christianity inherited the notion of sin, a concept foreign to most religions outside the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. Guilt is one thing. Sin is another. Guilt is a psychological phenomenon. Sin is metaphysical. The Christian God, in the name of His Son, will forgive a repentant sinner; but He will wreak vengeance upon any family, village or town that harbors (even if unknowingly) an unrepentant sinner or worse, a pagan or a nonbeliever whose souls are black with Sin. So even if there were such a thing as a mimetic tendency toward sacrificial violence and even if belief in the sacrifice of Jesus acts to mitigate that tendency, the very reason Jesus had to sacrifice Himself, namely Sin, remains and acts to compound the urge to expel and harm those whose beliefs, lifestyles and appearances don’t fit with the Christian norm.
Nevertheless, it may be the case that the benefit to society of the proffered escape from the cycle of sacrificial violence had been a factor in the spread of Christianity over Europe. Still, I would think missionary zeal and the biblical command to be “fishermen of men” and to broadcast the “good news” played a larger role. Christianity’s combination of proselytization, and enforced monotheism drove more pagan beliefs and practices to extinction than any religion that came before it. Whatever happened to all the local religions and spiritual practices that existed in Europe before the invasion of Christianity?
Back to the issue of Starbuck’s choice of seasonal cups: we modern non-Christians are happy to let Christians take the Solstice out of Winter; but for them to pretend that there’s a liberal movement to take the Christ out of Christmas is just an absurd irony. Christian monotheism, almost by definition, has no tolerance for a diversity of gods, or a diversity of religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs or even non-belief.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
trish
Unfortunately Christianity inherited the notion of sin, a concept foreign to most religions outside the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. Guilt is one thing. Sin is another. Guilt is a psychological phenomenon. Sin is metaphysical. The Christian God, in the name of His Son, will forgive a repentant sinner; but He will wreak vengeance upon any family, village or town that harbors (even if unknowingly) an unrepentant sinner or worse, a pagan or a nonbeliever whose souls are black with Sin. So even if there were such a thing as a mimetic tendency toward sacrificial violence and even if belief in the sacrifice of Jesus acts to mitigate that tendency, the very reason Jesus had to sacrifice Himself, namely Sin, remains and acts to compound the urge to expel and harm those whose beliefs, lifestyles and appearances don’t fit with the Christian norm.
Nevertheless, it may be the case that the benefit to society of the proffered escape from the cycle of sacrificial violence had been a factor in the spread of Christianity over Europe. Still, I would think missionary zeal and the biblical command to be “fishermen of men” and to broadcast the “good news” played a larger role. Christianity’s combination of proselytization, and enforced monotheism drove more pagan beliefs and practices to extinction than any religion that came before it. Whatever happened to all the local religions and spiritual practices that existed in Europe before the invasion of Christianity?
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I think you are confused by the concept of sin which in practice exists in most religions, either as an explicit denial of the commands of God which in practical terms means a violation of social norms or laws; or exists as part of the relationship of the person with life here or in another time, as with the concept of Karma in Hindu and Buddhist religions -Karma may have positive and negative consequences, but the point is that a person's actions have consequences, whether or not guilt is part of the emotional content of sin.
The more complex problem in Christianity lies more in the (political) development of Christianity as a system of belief and behaviour than in the gospels themselves. In some places pagan rituals were not crushed by Christianity but absorbed into the faith, such as the 'Christianizing' of the Solstice and harvest festivals. Islam incorporated pre-existing rituals into its faith -the Hajj and Ramadan being two, whereas after the Hijra to Medina Muslims who used to turn toward Jerusalem to pray turned instead to Mecca.
Even more problematic for the Roman Catholic church as it converted its Pauline doctrines into the exclusive rites and beliefs we now associate with the Catholic Church, is that it treated alternative Christian practice and belief as heresy, which in the case of the Cathar communities in what is now south and south-western France became a campaign of mass murder, just as in later centuries Catholics and Protestants murdered each other as heretics. Along with this Pauline conversion many rites and beliefs which presented women both as priests and as examples of what it meant to be a good Christian were erased as much as possible -books extolling women were excluded from the Bible, icons and other visual representations destroyed. It is for this reason that some people reject the Roman Catholic 'version' of Christianity with its hierarchy, its rota of sin, guilt and redemption for a more 'anarchist' view of what it was Jesus intended. Crucially, perhaps, the concept of the 'Just War' which enabled Christians to don armour and equip themselves with swords to kill to their hearts content, is seen by some as a complete contradiction of what Christianity means.
None of this means anything to those people who do not believe in the soul, or in what might be called the 'spiritual life', yet it remains the case that all human societies have developed concepts of right and wrong and good and bad behaviour, and to whatever extent have built rule based behaviour around such morals to better organise social groups.
The key point is that there are ways in which anger can be managed, without it leading to human sacrifice and that human societies have been able to live without war.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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I think you are confused by the concept of sin which in practice exists in most religions, either as an explicit denial of the commands of God which in practical terms means a violation of social norms or laws; or exists as part of the relationship of the person with life here or in another time, as with the concept of Karma in Hindu and Buddhist religions -Karma may have positive and negative consequences, but the point is that a person's actions have consequences, whether or not guilt is part of the emotional content of sin.
I agree with the point that a person’s actions have consequences. However, Christians tell us that even newborn babes harbor original sin and should they die without the proper blessings they would spend eternity in limbo, whatever that is. Christian Sin is some serious metaphysical shit. It’s not just a regretful action with undesirable consequences. God had to sacrifice His Son just to make it possible for humankind to redeem itself of the magically everlasting sin of Adam and Eve which somehow still spoils all of our souls, whatever they are. The story of the crucifixion is not about breaking the cycle of sacrificial pogroms; its about establishing the notion of metaphysical sin from which you can only be cleansed by disavowing all your previous beliefs, your previous spiritual and healing practices and converting to Christianity. That’s the meaning of the redemption story. It’s bait. It’s an early version of spam. It’s a mind virus.
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In some places pagan rituals were not crushed by Christianity but absorbed into the faith, such as the 'Christianizing' of the Solstice and harvest festivals.
Of course Christianizing a people is done without recourse to threats of violence (eternal or otherwise), and no one was ever expelled, tortured, burned or otherwise harmed in the Christianization of the Winter Solstice, nor any traditional spiritual practices outlawed and punished.
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None of this means anything to those people who do not believe in the soul, or in what might be called the 'spiritual life', yet it remains the case that all human societies have developed concepts of right and wrong and good and bad behaviour, and to whatever extent have built rule based behaviour around such morals to better organise social groups.
One doesn’t have to lead a spiritual life or believe in a soul to behave ethically and morally. Nor is spirituality a requirement for the development of a secular democracy or a rule-based system of law. It might be claimed that the souls, holy spirits, and sins that are of concern to Christians don’t mean anything to those who do not believe, unless: you’re a poor woman who was hoping to get a mammogram at your nearest planned parenthood clinic but can’t because Christians are shutting them down, or a doctor who works there because Christians are threatening your life and the lives of your family, or a gay boy who was hoping to join the boy scouts (oh this one just got fixed!), or an atheist who wants to run for governor, or an Iman who was hoping to build a Islamic community center with a Mosque within three city blocks of the 9/11 memorial, or a high school biology teacher who just wants to introduce children to the excitement of science, or you’re a CEO for Starbucks who is just trying to find an appropriately seasonal paper cup for your lattes, or you want the currency you use on a daily basis not to carry an advertisement for monotheism...etc.
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The key point is that there are ways in which anger can be managed, without it leading to human sacrifice ...
About that we we were never in contention, only the means were in question: empathy, caring and reason or spirituality, sin and redemption.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
trish
One doesn’t have to lead a spiritual life or believe in a soul to behave ethically and morally.
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Originally Posted by
buttslinger
And the "Golden Rule" is pretty much all the 'commandments ' we need to know.
Shit if were as simple as all that than we wouldn't have diddly squat to argue about ...
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
trish
I agree with the point that a person’s actions have consequences. However, Christians tell us that even newborn babes harbor original sin and should they die without the proper blessings they would spend eternity in limbo, whatever that is. Christian Sin is some serious metaphysical shit. It’s not just a regretful action with undesirable consequences. God had to sacrifice His Son just to make it possible for humankind to redeem itself of the magically everlasting sin of Adam and Eve which somehow still spoils all of our souls, whatever they are. The story of the crucifixion is not about breaking the cycle of sacrificial pogroms; its about establishing the notion of metaphysical sin from which you can only be cleansed by disavowing all your previous beliefs, your previous spiritual and healing practices and converting to Christianity. That’s the meaning of the redemption story. It’s bait. It’s an early version of spam. It’s a mind virus.
Of course Christianizing a people is done without recourse to threats of violence (eternal or otherwise), and no one was ever expelled, tortured, burned or otherwise harmed in the Christianization of the Winter Solstice, nor any traditional spiritual practices outlawed and punished.
One doesn’t have to lead a spiritual life or believe in a soul to behave ethically and morally. Nor is spirituality a requirement for the development of a secular democracy or a rule-based system of law. It might be claimed that the souls, holy spirits, and sins that are of concern to Christians don’t mean anything to those who do not believe, unless: you’re a poor woman who was hoping to get a mammogram at your nearest planned parenthood clinic but can’t because Christians are shutting them down, or a doctor who works there because Christians are threatening your life and the lives of your family, or a gay boy who was hoping to join the boy scouts (oh this one just got fixed!), or an atheist who wants to run for governor, or an Iman who was hoping to build a Islamic community center with a Mosque within three city blocks of the 9/11 memorial, or a high school biology teacher who just wants to introduce children to the excitement of science, or you’re a CEO for Starbucks who is just trying to find an appropriately seasonal paper cup for your lattes, or you want the currency you use on a daily basis not to carry an advertisement for monotheism...etc.
About that we we were never in contention, only the means were in question: empathy, caring and reason or spirituality, sin and redemption.
I think you have allowed yourself to relate to an agenda set by some Christians who others would criticize for the zealous imposition of practice and belief when there are other ways of living a Christian life which do not involve coercion, or discrimination or picketing abortion clinics.
There is a similar problem with Islam where critics take the 'radicals' at their own word and thus assume their interpretation of Islam is the right one even if it is rejected by most Muslims and can be shown to be theologically incorrect on a wide range of claims. It is thus absurd to believe that Christians condemn a new born baby as a sinner, the practice of baptism is an induction, it has more to do with belonging to a community than it does with faith itself, indeed this is one of the central problems of Christianity in general and the Roman Catholic church in particular with its bizarre sets of rituals and even its own furniture -who ever heard of the Confession Box in Roman Palestine?
The criticism is of a separation of Christianity as a set of established rituals with a catechism which must be administered by priests, from a personal form of spiritual belief and practice that can be done daily without causing harm to others and has no need of priests at all. I suspect that this is one of the most potent dangers in all religions, because the institution can, indeed in many cases has become more powerful than the message it is supposed to express. The problem of orthopraxy emerges here to illustrate how a religious sect evolving from a small space into a world wide religion organised from a centre can take hold of communities where the community dynamic makes free expression difficult if not impossible -at a time when most people lived in small village communities not appearing in church on a Sunday was a big deal, the Scarlet Letter in this context offers an entertaining if grim account of how such communities behaved. I was once told by a Muslim from Libya how at a prayer room in a university a Saudi approached him and asked him 'why do you pray like that?' because many North Africans do not cross their arms in prayer even though they are Sunni -it was common among the Maliki in North Africa even though it has now become an assumption that only the Shi'a stand with their arms by their side. To complicate matters most Arabs who cross their right over their left hand do it above the navel whereas in the Indian sub-continent and parts of Asia they do it below the navel. 'Did I do something wrong?' was the reply and 'No' came back yet one man was in effect forcing the other to feel that he had not behaved properly in a mosque and that is another example of how religion in a community setting can modify or coerce behaviour.
And while you are free to interpret the Crucifixion as you wish, I do believe you are wrong about it. Perhaps the most telling aspect of Christianity is that the simple message of love that Jesus says humans should always express appears to be the hardest for them to do. George W Bush, on the day after 9/11 probably should have told Osama bin Laden that as a Christian he loved him and forgave him for what he had done, but he chickened out on that one, choosing hatred and violent death instead.
The problem you have is that even without a processional view of the history of ideas, religion does appear in many cases to have been the portal through which secular morals and laws have emerged. I don't see how you can disentagle the relationship between punishment and reward as expressed in the moral cosmology that emerged in the Neolithic and the latter judgement of what is the right and wrong way to behave in society, that these ideas were presented in the language of religion is just the way it is, and you are free to reject it. But you can sense how Hobbes wanted to separate politics from religion but was not comfortable with that, least of all with Cromwell peering over his shoulder, just as it has been said Hegel could not have admitted he was an atheist as he would have lost his job in Berlin. We are often told that our values are part of a Judeo-Christian heritage, with the Greeks and the Romans mixed in there somewhere, but I find it a vague heritage and often one that seems to have opposed the development of reason and science rather than facilitating it. At an early phase in the history of science Thomas Aquinas was tasked with the demolition of scientific thought and the Summa Theologica was the turgid and unconvincing result even though it remains in the curriculum today and not always as an oddity.
As we have become more secular, the religious foundations of law have receded as the source of law, and I think that is a good thing, because it does express the fact that many people no longer live or even believe in a religious life. But many do, which is why there is no real contradiction between the two unless there is a clash between aspects of secular and religious law, as appears to be the case with, for example, divorce among Observant Jews, and Muslims, even though there are ways round it as is also the case with religious objections to same-sex marriage.
Thus, to say that One doesn't have to lead a spiritual life or believe in a soul to behave ethically and morally is an empty slogan if you have not identified what the ethics are or where they come from, or why we even think ethically.
You may not approve of what many religious people do; they do not approve of much of what secular society does, and yet on a wide range of issues there is common ground. The saddest aspect of all this is found in the arid imprecations and ideological attachments that have become embedded in the discourses, sometimes the 'dialogue of the deaf' that attend the endless debate over religious belief and practice in the context of social breakdown and war. Perhaps it is not God who is to be feared, but other people
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Indeed
L'enfer, c'est les autres
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Until God registers on Hungangels.com and start posting, I'm afraid we're destined to hearsay. heresy? If God notifies us, it will be on a personal line, and fear that, yeah, because if he does, the fuckin party is over, no more carefree existence. Time to pay the Piper. If that scares you, run, do not walk to the nearest exit. Jesus was young once.
Do we talk about God as we would talk to a child?
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Evil is not the opposite of Religion, Sex and money are the opposites of religion. I would say Hell is incorporated into religion, and that religion is actually pretty scary stuff. Niceness is the PG-rated Disney version of religion, and it keeps lots of people out of prison and happy. Jesus got crucified, man.
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Originally Posted by
buttslinger
Until God registers on Hungangels.com and start posting, I'm afraid we're destined to hearsay. heresy?
I read this wrong the first time as
"Until God registers on Hungangels.com and starts posing"
I am doomed
In in the picture. I'm in the bottom right corner - see you there
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
martin48
I'm in the bottom right corner - see you there
I'm the guy in front shaking your hand. Nice Party.
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You two have fun at the Last Judgement. Just between you and me, Jehovah's a bore. Fortunately Dionysus is throwing a Bacchanalia the same night. I'll be there instead.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
buttslinger
Until God registers on Hungangels.com and start posting, I'm afraid we're destined to hearsay. heresy? If God notifies us, it will be on a personal line, and fear that, yeah, because if he does, the fuckin party is over, no more carefree existence. Time to pay the Piper. If that scares you, run, do not walk to the nearest exit. Jesus was young once.
Do we talk about God as we would talk to a child?
Hey! I've been here over 8 years. Nobody noticed? I think I need a new sacrefice. I won't be providing the blood to let this time though. All y'all're gonna have to get creative & lmpressive. Shoot me some prayers with original ideas & I'll decide what I like. Or text me @ ecumspiri22o.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Some of the very funniest stuff.on this forum here in this thread. God can take a joke if he even exists.
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We don't know what kind of jokes he (or it is a "she") likes. Puns, knock-knock, bathroom humour, gay,pure filth, ....
Here's a go(o)d one
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
As a kid I had a knock-knock joke that was so good (imo) that thought I'd share it with God. So I prayed, "Knock knock!" ...........Silence. No response. So I try again, "Knock knock!".......Still no reply. One more time, "Knock, knock!" ......... At that point I shrugged and said to myself, "Guess nobody's home."
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Question: "Does God have a sense of humor?"
Answer: Perhaps the best indication that God does have a sense of humor is that He created man in His image
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-humor.html
Says it all really...
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
I am the opinion that the Transexual phenomenon began stronger in this last 20/30 years or so, as soon as many people began to switch from believer to non believers and there was a huge drop of faith, especially amongst women who felt him to be kinda of racist god and to give all the power to men.
So our forgotten god, decided to create more Ts to give to everyone a better understanding of what he/she is and what it is not-
The god can’t be male or female, neither a she nor a he, moreover the god is an atheist itself. It can be only a Ts god / M-t-F / F-t-M and neither this nor that.
There is obviously no god as such, and just an image created by ourselves to feel more at ease and I like to call it “godliness” rather than using the stereotyped usual words. The image of the fake god is more for those who cannot grow in perception, and need the consolation of a father figure.
Someone was asked if he believed in god and the poor guy was only able to give long answers by saying: Yes/No/Yes-No-both/ Perhaps yes, Perhaps not, perhaps both not/ Perhaps both yes and not and so he went on for ages….
Along with the idea of the god, comes also the idea of sin, and I find it a bit unfair the way we should all be punished for all of our supposed sins. For sins made in an average life of 70/80 I should be punished in the other life and be in the eternal hell? More over one begins to commit sins at the age of 14/15 yo when one begins to be fully conscious of his/her action…. Plus a few more years until he is 70/80 yo, when one loses even the strength to commit a sin and he does it in more unconscious way. It is really an unfair equation as in 55/60 active years one must be punished for life.
I am happy for now to follow my deduction and to think that Forgetfulness is the only sin-
By the way this thread is very enlightening and happy to see so many who have commented on it….
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He might just like this one
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jia_westladyboy
I am the opinion that the Transexual phenomenon began stronger in this last 20/30 years or so, as soon as many people began to switch from believer to non believers and there was a huge drop of faith, especially amongst women who felt him to be kinda of racist god and to give all the power to men.
So our forgotten god, decided to create more Ts to give to everyone a better understanding of what he/she is and what it is not-
The god can’t be male or female, neither a she nor a he, moreover the god is an atheist itself. It can be only a Ts god / M-t-F / F-t-M and neither this nor that.
There is obviously no god as such, and just an image created by ourselves to feel more at ease and I like to call it “godliness” rather than using the stereotyped usual words. The image of the fake god is more for those who cannot grow in perception, and need the consolation of a father figure.
Someone was asked if he believed in god and the poor guy was only able to give long answers by saying: Yes/No/Yes-No-both/ Perhaps yes, Perhaps not, perhaps both not/ Perhaps both yes and not and so he went on for ages….
Along with the idea of the god, comes also the idea of sin, and I find it a bit unfair the way we should all be punished for all of our supposed sins. For sins made in an average life of 70/80 I should be punished in the other life and be in the eternal hell? More over one begins to commit sins at the age of 14/15 yo when one begins to be fully conscious of his/her action…. Plus a few more years until he is 70/80 yo, when one loses even the strength to commit a sin and he does it in more unconscious way. It is really an unfair equation as in 55/60 active years one must be punished for life.
I am happy for now to follow my deduction and to think that Forgetfulness is the only sin-
By the way this thread is very enlightening and happy to see so many who have commented on it….
It is a little more complicated than that. Transgender individuals have always been around in one way, shape, or form. Most spirits and beings are one singular gender of their particular race (in our case human). Native Americans used the term two-spirit to describe individuals that were either Transgender or had two spirits occupying a body for a particular reason.
Higher level spirits can take on multiple genders some moving between male and female or evolved to be both.
There are Transgender gods/goddesses/deities depending on the religion but many are minor and have been forgotten over time but they are aware.
Even if you do not believe in the concept of a god that is cool because that is your choice. The only unfortunate part is that some atheists down here do not realize that by having no concept of a god means they have greater responsibility for their actions. 100% free will comes at a choice. The choice to always know the difference between right and wrong and not just your right or your wrong.
You are 100% correct on the whole sin thing.
Some transgender individuals, mostly in Asian cultures, have two spirits sharing a body on this planet. I met one transgender woman in Toronto who was Thai. Many people could not understand her but I figured her out by taking a moment to do an in-depth search. What I discovered was that a husband and wife wanted to come down and occupy a body together with the male spirit being the strong business sense while the female spirit was more of a homemaker. Once I understood that part of her, knowing what spirit I was speaking with made dealing with her easy.
Some people come down as a punishment. For example, Buddhist priests who do evil are punished by coming back as a woman in a mans body since a woman is treated different in their culture. It is not all cases but some.
Others come down to hide from something that may be chasing them on the other side or from a past life.
It is not as simple or as black and white as our culture decries so often.
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Quote:
Even if you do not believe in the concept of a god that is cool because that is your choice. The only unfortunate part is that some atheists down here do not realize that by having no concept of a god means they have greater responsibility for their actions. 100% free will comes at a choice. The choice to always know the difference between right and wrong and not just your right or your wrong.
Another unfortunate part is that some theists don’t seem to realize that what constitutes moral behavior isn’t necessarily determined by the Creator God nor is it that which is espoused by His prophets. Morality and godhood are two independent notions and neither entails the other. Believers have been known to pray fervently, commune with God, hear His Word in their heads and then commit horrendous atrocities, thinking they were doing the right and moral thing because God commanded it.
Moreover, whether or not we have free-will (or 100% free-will, as you put it) is independent of whether there is a god or not. In most religions people have the choice to do good or ill, albeit they will eventually be rewarded or punished for their choices. In some religions we have no free-will and everything we do is preordained. Some religions maintain God Himself can do no evil. This is sometimes understood as a restriction on God’s will and sometimes misunderstood as the definition of Good (this error is nicely explored in Mark Twain’s novella The Mysterious Stranger). Perhaps the more reasonable understanding is that what is Good is not determined by God but rather God always freely chooses to do Good; but of course this is an additional assumption which doesn’t follow from the assumption that there is a creator god. 'God exists' is one assumption. 'God is Good' is another.
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It is not as simple or as black and white as our culture decries so often.
As for spirits inhabiting bodies, coming down, rising up, or being chased across the nether dimensions by their own karma: these notions involve a slew of additional independent assumptions which, however, are not too difficult to assess. The world of make-believe rarely simple and certainly never mundane. You may enjoy the novels of David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks and Slade House are very entertaining.
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
since there is no God, then it figures...
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
holzz
since there is no God, then it figures...
You Rang????
Happy Easter!
Oh what, now the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either?????
How about Alice's White Rabbit, does he exist?
Somewhere in the HALL of IMAGINATION there is a FACTS and FIGURES ROOM that charts the WORTHWHILENESS of all seven and a half billion people.
Just kidding.
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That one must be the Easter bunny. This one's Alice's ->
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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See this thread has gone down hill
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Re: The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"
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Originally Posted by
martin48
See this thread has gone down hill
Because the thread has become dominated by infantile cartoons, rather than a debate.
Donald Trump's flippant remark on women and abortion, in which he said that women who have a termination should be 'punished' -a statement he then had to retract- illustrates his indifference to women, but also a sudden impulse to say what he thinks the Republican Party wants to hear, only even they have held back from the kind of policy that exists in countries such as El Salvador where women have been imprisoned for terminating a pregnancy and one woman was incarcerated for having a miscarriage (though it is not clear if the prosecutors could tell the difference).
There was a time when the Republican Party did not have a single position on abortion, it has been argued that it was a campaign by the Moral Majority that began in the 1970s which merged with the existing if marginal evangelical Christian churches to change the way the GOP thought about this issue, galvanised by Roe-vs-Wade after 1973 much as Jon O'Brien claims:
"Taking over school boards at local and district levels, the evangelical politicians rose through the ranks of the Republican Party and eventually took over the party platform. These were the same tactics used during Prohibition by the temperance movement, which preyed on the fears of the conservative Protestant Scottish contingent in the United States by using stereotypes of drunken Irish and Polish to galvanize the vote against them."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a6961881.html
It is a curious aspect of Evangelical Christianity in the USA -if that is what it is- that it should appear to be so angry, and vengeful, and focus its attention on 'sin' and 'bad behaviour', rather than promote goodness in society, and the capacity that people have to co-operate and be charitable, indeed, to improve the quality of life -dare one even say 'the spiritual life'. Oddly perhaps, or not, this bleak agenda of societies cast down by attacks on the family (abortion, same-sex marriage), on the economy (state control and taxes), and belief and 'public morals' (godless, immoral cinema and tv; pornography on the internet), sounds like a menu of corrosion from within that might have been written by the fundamentalists of Daesh or al-Qaeda, or the government of Saudi Arabia (but maybe not on taxes).
Another curious tone was set in Obama's first campaign, because he offered a different agenda from the constant Republican Party factions ranting on about what is wrong with America -his message of 'hope and change' may have seemed absurdly wonderful, yet the tone it set was one that people responded to after years of terrorism and war, and one can see today the radical difference with the angry brigades that follow Trump and Sanders, and while they might have a lot to be angry about, the tone it sets in public debate makes politics uncomfortable and even dangerous. If the view is that 'American is broken' and the next guy must fix it, what happens when he fails?
The Old Testament God of Moses was a jealous and an angry God, the God of Jesus, we like to believe, was by contrast a loving God. It seems to me that the decline of religious belief in the USA is measured by the ever more strident position of the Republican Party, and this is one reason why I think they appear on this side of the pond to be out of touch on a range of social issues on which most Americans are either relaxed or don't get upset about. They appear to have chosen rage over calm, emergency over tedium, and punishment over reward. I am not sure that the Democrats are any more coherent on a range of issues, Sanders offers little in terms of hope, but that suggests to me that both parties are struggling to develop a policy framework that will create jobs and grow the economy, on which it is not so much 'God only knows', as an area where even God cannot help.
