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 MarkostheGnostic
Elder
 
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 2 years, 7 months
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 Re: Religion  [Re: Ishmael]
#410980 - 10/02/01 06:00 AM (22 years, 15 hours ago) |
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Lots of paranoia here bud, in your post and in the responses. Fear breeds hatred. Blanket statements about Christians - or any other group is simple bigotry. It is irrational. No one knows a ALL the people of any group. Just because people tag themselves as something doesn't necessarily mean they ARE that tag. I am a Christain and I have long recognized the validity of tenets of other faiths. Christianity's doctrines are specific, but they open up into universal Truth. When Jesus says "I am the Way..." He is referring to the Logos - the aspect of God's Uncreated Nature which impinges upon human existence. The Logos operates in many faiths (if you believe that It spoke through Balaam's jackass, for example, you can believe that God speaks through many mouths). If you still picture a long-haired, beared 1st century Jew when you read the Words of Jesus the Christ (to be "in Christ" is to be caught up in a whole new level of Being - to be aware of the Eternal while yet in the body), then you are not understanding the phenomenon of the Incarnation doctrine. Remember this: "Many are called, but few are chosen." The imperialistic doctrines of man that condemn are not the Teachings of Christ. Spiritual scriptures are recognized to be in levels by Jewish scholars: the literal (historical), the allegorical ("I am the vine, you are the branches"), the symbolic and the mystical. Only simpletons take scripture as literal across the board. It's a matter of discernment, which comes through spiritual maturity. I think you are disgusted with a world of literalists. Join the club.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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 Ishmael
enthusiast
Registered: 10/28/99
Posts: 224
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You're quite right, I don't think any mystical experience or mode of divine relation can be expressed in a literal sense. Any attempt to do so is an attempt to sterilize, cogitate and otherwise impose the method and rigor of ego /onto/ the experience. That is not to say that one cannot derive realization and understanding from a spiritual experience simply because these are mental activities, it means that the depth is something that can only be self-relative.
When Christ speaks (or is quoted as speaking), allegorically, literally or otherwise about the nature of his connection to 'his father' he is trying to verbalize an experience and condition which is neccesarily beyond the scope of words (language isn't setup to convey meanings of these sorts). Certainly what he says is provacative, but its only through actual personal experience with that level of being that true understanding of any of the implied meaning can be derived. And what I believe many people percieve is that the frame-work of religion isn't setup to propogate that sort of /experience/, which is perhaps exactly what they want and need.
You see priests advocating that people be 'more like Jesus' and handing out little bracelets with keen slogons on them, but if you ask a priest the method by which you could experience what Jesus was trying to convey through words, you would probably get a blank stare and an answer like 'Read your scripture' or perhaps 'Join a monastary/nunnery'. This is because the edifice of /religion/ isn't setup for the mystic who is actually trying to increase his or her depth of experience or level of spiritual maturity. It is setup for exactly the sorts of people who have been deemed literalist here. Let me put that another way just so I am clear. Standard religion (the kind you get at your local church, mosk or temple) is not about dissemination of religious /experience/, its about the dissemination of religious /doctrine/. It's about spreading beliefs and not about spreading experience. I am not arguing that it is impossible to derive any sort of personal meaning, reflection over even a full-blown spiritual experience from the bible, I am certain that you can! Many monks, nuns and mystics (William Blake would fall into this latter category) do and continue to do so to this day. But the 99.9% of the world that are not monks, nuns or mystics are still practicing /religion/ and getting only doctrine and a vauge sense of fellowship from it.
The point that is being argued is the reason behind why people revile religion, and that seems to me to be because when people go to church they're yearning for some sort of personal connection to the divine (that 'religious experience' where it all makes sense and everything becomes clear), one that isn't manifested because the priests arn't taught to /try/ to produce such a state of ecstasy. Their goal isn't religious imancipation through divine connection (such a thing would automatically put them out of a job), it is conversion and always has been. They are not evil for trying to convert people and place them safely under the sway of doctrine, they believe they are serving the utmost good! But it is exactly that method and gravitation towards assimilation that makes people so damned wary of the whole scope of 'religion'. Again, just so I am clear, I am not striking at the validity of any singular religious entity or doctrine of beliefs. I am trying to point out that when we talk about religion, this is what most people seem to percieve - someone (or a group of someones) who feels it is their moral obligation to do everything in their power to 'save' every 'soul'. I'm not trying to say this is 'good' or 'bad', I'm just saying that this is what /is/.
Ish
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MrKurtz
enthusiast
Registered: 08/04/01
Posts: 303
Last seen: 21 years, 6 months
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Re: Religion [Re: ]
#411773 - 10/02/01 09:09 PM (22 years, 36 minutes ago) |
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"The major religions of mankind, now and throughout the history of mankind, have almost invariably fostered an impression of selectivity - a theme that those holding to the beliefs taught, or those strictly adhering to the practices required, will be selected for special treatment both before and after death. Of course this is entirely false"
Did anyone else find this as funny as I did?
As for religious people believing there faith is the only right one... doesn't it make sense that if you believe in something you tend to believe its right?
Ishmael, you're pretty much right. But, I guess it just bothers me when people are intolerant towards people who they believe to be intolerant. The Bible is a beautiful piece of work, just like every other religious work I've read.
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BBin
BlueOvertoneStorm
Registered: 04/30/99
Posts: 455
Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 8 years, 8 months
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Re: Religion [Re: MrKurtz]
#412052 - 10/03/01 01:22 AM (21 years, 11 months ago) |
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I am a deeply religious person, open to the spirituality of life, yet i reject any institutionalised religion. I am an atheist who happens to believe in god.
Thought is born blind but Mind knows what is Seeing
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Thought is born blind but Mind knows what is Seeing
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MokshaMan
enthusiast
Registered: 03/12/01
Posts: 280
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Re: Religion [Re: BBin]
#412074 - 10/03/01 02:05 AM (21 years, 11 months ago) |
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I don't think you mean what you just said. Atheism is by definition: belief that no God exists(Oxford Dictionary). Therefore an atheist would be a person that believes no God exists. Not sure what someone who believes in God but rejects any institutional religion, but I'm sure it's not atheist. Anyone know if there's a specific name for this?
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Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
-- George Owell
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gnrm23
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/29/99
Posts: 6,488
Loc: n. e. OH, USSA
Last seen: 5 days, 3 hours
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Re: Religion [Re: MokshaMan]
#412237 - 10/03/01 08:24 AM (21 years, 11 months ago) |
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deist...
old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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old enough to know better
not old enough to care
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BBin
BlueOvertoneStorm
Registered: 04/30/99
Posts: 455
Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 8 years, 8 months
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Re: Religion [Re: MokshaMan]
#412334 - 10/03/01 10:12 AM (21 years, 11 months ago) |
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..ever heard of 'paradox'? perhaps possibly maybe
anyway, i bow down to your great knowledge of Words, which however great, was insufficient to grasp the meaning hiding behind mine. ;p
Thought is born blind but Mind knows what is Seeing
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Thought is born blind but Mind knows what is Seeing
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