Quote of the Week
“Why is it that churches that claim to have all the answers, don’t allow any questions?”
Posted by An Acolyte on 08/18 at 08:30 PM
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How many people cite the Bible as the source of their moral principles?
This is quite interesting (source):
About half of all adults (54%) claim that they make their moral choices on the basis of specific principles or standards they believe in…
Among those who claim to make moral decisions based on specific principles, a wide variety of sources were listed as the wellspring of that moral guidance. Three out of every ten people named the Bible as the sources of those principles. Overall, then, just one out of every six adults (16%) claim they make their moral choices based on the content of the Bible.
Why does this surprise me? Maybe I too am a victim of all the media hype about faith—the ‘biblically based’, culturally conservative type of faith at least. Certainly is food for thought.
Posted by An Acolyte on 08/14 at 01:35 PM
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Beliefs and facts
Sam Harris makes a good point:
The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us. Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.
Posted by An Acolyte on 08/03 at 08:30 AM
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Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
How does the Jesus presented in the Gospel of Thomas differ from the other gospels? For one answer, let’s read what Elaine H. Pagels and Helmut Koester said as they discussed this for PBS’ Frontline:
The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place that appear in the other gospels. Here Jesus says, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds will get there first. If they say ‘it’s in the ocean,’ then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children of the living father.”
Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior state; “It’s within you,” Luke says. And here it says, “It’s inside you but it’s also outside of you.” It’s like a state of consciousness. It’s hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge. But itdoesn’t mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks had two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is personal, like “I know that person, or do you know so and so.” So this gnosis is self-knowledge; you could call it insight. It’s a question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level of your name and your social class or your position. But knowing yourself at a deep level. The secret of gnosis is that when you know yourself at that level you will also come to know God, because you will discover that the divine is within you.
Now, [in the Gospel of Thomas], this Jesus comes to reveal that you and he are, if you like, twins.... And what you discover as you read the Gospel of Thomas, which you’re meant to discover, is that you and Jesus at a deep level are identical twins. And that you discover that you are the child of God just as he is. And so that at the end of the gospel Jesus speaks to Thomas and says, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am, and I will become that person, and the mysteries will be revealed to him.” Here, Jesus does not take the role of authority and teacher. In the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples say to Jesus, “Tell us, what do you want us to do? How shall we pray? What shall we eat? How shall we fast?” Now if you look at Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers the questions. He says, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father who are in Heaven, hallowed be...’ When you fast, wash your face, don’t make a show of it. When you give alms do it privately and without being showy.” In this gospel, this Jesus does not answer. He says, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for everything is known before heaven.” Now this answer throws you and me upon ourselves.... Here Jesus, in effect, turns one toward oneself, and that is really one of the themes of the Gospel of Thomas, that you must go in a sort of a spiritual quest of your own to discover who you are, and to discover really that you are the child of God just like Jesus.
[When one truly knows oneself], one understands that one is divine, but also one understands that one is mortal. In such a way, you recognize that this mortality is really meaningless, as physical existence is meaningless. And therefore, death is no longer a problem, but death is a solution, because in death finally all this mortality will fall away, and the true self will be liberated to an independent existence that’s no longer dependent on physical existence. And on everything that goes with physical existence, sickness and poverty and so on. And so physical existence is often described as poverty. But when you know yourself you are no longer in poverty.
This is beginning to sound familiar.
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/31 at 04:03 PM
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Discovery of the Fifth Gospel
What?! There are only four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, right? Well, no. The existence of the Gospel of Thomas was known from various early Christian sources: Hippolytus, Origin and Eusebius of Caesarea, for example (cf. here).
Here is the beginning of the gospel
And he said. “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
Jesus said, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.” (Jesus Seminar translation)
The discovery of the text—in Coptic—was in the Egyptian desert in 1945. It was found by Muhammad ’Ali, who had gone looking for soil suited for use as a fertilizer. Instead he found a large clay pot containing various codices in Coptic. Unfortunately some of the codices were burned, but those that survived ended up in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
You’ll find the detailed story here.
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/31 at 01:23 PM
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quote of the day
"There’s an infinite number of things that you can’t disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars.” - Richard Dawkins
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/20 at 07:18 PM
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The Sins of Scripture - I
John Shelby Spong's The Sins of Scriptures examines "those texts that have been used through history to justify the denigration or persecution of others, all the while carrying with them the implied and imposed authority of the claim that they were 'the Word of God'."
Spong’s ideas tend to inspire a variety of reactions (here, here). A few years ago, after I first read one of his books, I remember having a positive intellectual response along with a luke-warm emotional response. I was especially struck by the assertion that one’s heart cannot embrace what the mind cannot accept, which I believe is actually a reference to Marcus Borg.
As time has passed, I have come to agree with this statement, but with the addition that the mind does not—perhaps can not—find enough evidence to provide an answer to some questions that the heart may pose, such as ‘what is the meaing of life?’ and ‘what happens to me when I’m dead?’.
Nevertheless, the main reason I recommend The Sins of Scripture is that the book contains so much about the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Unless you’ve been well-schooled or well-read on the origins of these texts, you’re bound to learn a lot.
Especially facinating are the chapter on the story of Judas and the last section on the role of scripture as epic history.
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/17 at 01:02 PM
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Take it to heart!
The previous post mentioned that one’s conscience can be guided in the main by external authority or by internalized morality. The following, attributed to the Bhudda as he lay on his deathbed, certainly encourages an internalized morality.
"Do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement because it is found in our books, nor because it is in accord with your belief, nor because it is the saying of your teacher...Be ye lamps unto yourselves...Those who, either now or after I am dead, shall rely upon themselves only and not look for assistance to anyone besides themselves, it is they who shall teach the very topmost height."
Be lamps unto yourselves!
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/13 at 08:37 PM
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What led me to create this site?
Where is your moral compass located?
Some years ago, probably in the mid-1990's, I was listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on the local talk-radio station. I don't claim to remember her comments verbatim, but it went something like this:
I really cannot understand why some people don't think there is a god or an afterlife. I certainly believe there is -- otherwise why should I go to the trouble of being a good person if there is no reward!?
That comment instantly made me realize that there was a radical difference between the good Doctor's moral system and my own. The answer to her question that sprang immediately to my mind was: I desire to be a good person because it's the right thing to do, not because of some future reward or punishment!
Forming a Conscience
I didn't think to much more about this until a couple of years ago when I developed an interest in whatever it is that tends to make a person a liberal instead of a conservative -- or vice versa -- a dichotomy that seems present in numerous areas of life, but is especially in religion and politics.
My reading on this topic brought me to Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by cognitive scientist George Lakoff (1996, 2002). This is not the time or place to discuss his theories in detail except to say that how children are raised does seem to make a difference. Here is Lakoff commenting on the research of others:
An upbringing with strict rules and punishments for violating them is supposed to produce a strong conscience in children. But the opposite is true. Such children show lesser evidence of conscience.
Getting children to follow strict rules through punitive enforcement is supposed to make them morally self-reliant, to create in them an inner moral sense that they can apply to new situations of moral conflict. But again the opposite is true. Such children are more likely to have to depend on the moral opinion of others, that is, they are “more likely to have external, rather than internal, moral orientation in discussing what is the ‘right’ behavior in situations of moral conflict.
Hmmm. 'External, rather than internal, moral orientation'. That seems to describe the contrast between my own moral compass and that of the good radio doctor.
The long and short of all this is that I've come to believe that this is one of the main differences between the right and left: how an individual's conscience is formed (reward/punishment vs. understanding) and 'where' it resides (internal/subjective vs. external/objective).
This need for external objective certainty goes double for religious conservatives, which is why many become so angry when the content and validity of their faith is called into question. More on this later.
Posted by An Acolyte on 07/10 at 11:43 AM
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Former Senator Danforth on Moderate Christianity
By contrast [with many conservative Christians], moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God’s truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God’s work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today’s politics.
For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord’s table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.
From the New York Times, 17 Jun 2005.
Posted by An Acolyte on 06/22 at 05:38 PM
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