Religion is as diverse as culture, your position is indefensible.
Creating the Creator..
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If you scratch your head to come up with universals to define and categorize culture you don't really have a defensible position, period ....
Which one? Since most religions are incompatible, more then one being true would cause a huge war of the gods since they are all so apparently arrogant, self-centered and conceded.
Having any gods at all, makes no sence at all.
KRR
I don't know what history books you have been reading, but the one's I have tend to indicate that conflict on a national level is a consequence of politics, moreover, in the pursuit of resources.
Strangely enough, I think she was making the same point, hence teh insistence on the singular - god
Then your history is pretty screwed up! Look to the middle east for a current example of killing to send the infidels to god! Politics is almost never devoid of religion and vise versa! The justification for genocide is almost always religious!
KRR
'Creators' may have been created since people may have a wish to be looked after, even with those strings attached instead of feeling free, even modeling Him on the strict family father image.
Or because the brain doesn't wish to contemplate its own end—for its job is quite the opposite, which is to survive, no matter what, and so then it even 'finds' a way to continue on, grasping onto the afterlife notion and then onto all else implied by that.
There was also the need to remain in the tribe and not be shunned for disbelief in the Moon or the Sun god, eventually telling their children the same, for children come to think that parents know things, such as when showing them the dangers of playing near a high cliff, which is actually science, but the children still go for the information of the invisible notions, too, which is religion.
the justification for conflict is politics, period
anything that becomes absorbed into the social fabric, including religion, can be potentially political
Secular society basically means that there is no inherent religious platform for poltics
:shrug:
Simple. As a species, we are all hierarchical and anthropomorphize.
To be sure, LG (and Lori), you are here setting yourself up as superhuman, above and beyond specific religious traditions, on the level just below God (if not even equal to God, and I am sure some people would say you are setting yourself above God).
This is quite egregious, to say the least.
For most people, the knowledge and experience of religion (note for Lori below) is the knowledge and experience of specific religious traditions (such as Roman Catholicism, a specific school of Hinduism, etc.).
They know and have experienced religion on the terms of "My religion is better than yours", "This religion is the right one and all others are fake", religious wars, religious bullying between religions etc.
One gets to know and experience the whole topic of religion and God on the terms of the strife between the individual religious traditions.
There does not exist on this planet an actual "Neutral, non-denominational and objective church of God".
The only places one can go to to learn about God are the specific religious traditions - with all their pitting against eachother (and everyone else).
And none of these specific traditions hold the views like you do, namely, that there is only one God and that there are different, but valid dispensations of theistic knowledge, differing according to time and place.
(And no, as much as Unitarian Universalism might try for unity and to reconcile the various religious traditions despite their differences, it remains a willfully eclectic mishmash.)
*Lori, I think that when you use the word "religion" (and in a quite disaparaging manner), you actually mean 'specific religious tradition, like Roman Catholicism or Sunni Islam etc.'
When LG and some others use the term "religion", they tend to mean something like 'the process of reconnecting oneself with God'.
What are your criteria for distinguishing what is political (or sociological, or psychological) as opposed to religious?
"The justification for conflict is politics" seems like a very secular and convenient statement, an example of using common sense to override claims made in the name of religion or by people claiming to be religious, to know the truth about God.
If we are to use common sense like this, then why not use it like this:
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/mindctrl/index.htm
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/mindctrl/sick.htm
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/mindctrl/addict.htm
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/mindctrl/extrmsm.htm
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/mindctrl/leaders.htm
-?
Why not use the criteria given at sites such as these linked above to determine what is healthy and what is sick spirituality, what is religious/spiritual and what is merely political/sociological/psychological?
Moreover, there is a lot of conflict within your religious tradition and it has conflicts with others. I have only ever seen spiritual justifications for this conflict ("They are in maya/karmis/not advanced enough").
We are in a lot of conflict too - but do you ever think of it as political?
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Every instance of application is an instance of application according to a specific religious tradition.
To apply oneself means to choose a specific religious tradition.
There is no application according to the "Neutral, non-denominational, supra-denominational and objective church of God". There is no such church, except in the minds of some wishful thinkers.
So it all comes down to, again, "Which religious tradition is the right one?"
You are criticizing people over something (namely, for not "theoretically understanding the topic" and for "not applying themselves") that is impossible to do (as you suggest it be done) to begin with.
A theoretical understanding of the theistic topics would require either omniscience, or considerable bias (that would have to be a deterministic given, not something one could freely choose).
It would be megalomania to presume one is omniscient, or that one's particular theistic bias is the right one.
Perhaps you yourself have indeed reached the level of having a sense of unity, even unity with the Supreme.
But if you think you can take credit for that, that this can be done intentionally (ie. choosing a specific religious path on the grounds of knowing full well what its results will be) and that therefore you can rightfully criticize others for not doing it - then I think you are not actually relating to the people you talk to, for starters ...
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Jung disagreed, and he was no religionist. He pointed out that all of the traditional polytheistic religions had, at their core, the same set of 23 (I think that was the number) deities. These are archetypes, motifs (images, legends, rituals, etc.) that occur in nearly all societies in nearly all eras.
He thought that they correspond to more-or-less distinct segments of our personality. Some days we must allow our Warrior to be in charge of events, other days the Lover, and on Friday nights the Reveler. A person with a really dominant Healer will probably go into a medical profession.
That may be true, but Jung died before the maturation of genetics as a science. Today we might instead say that archetypal beliefs are programmed into our synapses by our DNA. The origin of some is obviously natural selection: animals who instinctively fear and flee from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face will live long enough to reproduce and pass down their genes. (A newborn giraffe will clumsily scamper away from a lion, but ignore a wildebeest.)
The origins of other archetypes are more difficult to postulate. Perhaps they were survival traits in an era whose dangers we can't imagine. Or, just as easily, they could be random mutations that were passed down accidentally through a genetic bottleneck like Mitochondrial Eve or Y-Chromosome Adam.
Some archetypes represent truth: It really is a good idea to run away from predators. Others are just legends in the making, like the preposterous stories that make up the world's religions.
Ah - like the general idea that the big yellow thing we see each day has some importance in our lives that it gets anthropomorphised?
Or perhaps the concept of "don't hit me or I'll hit you" / "treat me as you wish me to treat you"?
Further, one can not ignore the possibility that some 70,000 years ago the human population was reduced to less than 20,000.
As such, any concept that was shared among a majority would have possibly found its way into the core of every subsequent generation - and thus become prevalent.
And of course none of this speaks to the truth of the claims... just to the prevalence of the claims.
signal, how could you and why would you possibly think that the church (the bride of christ) is a religious organization?
the process of reconnecting oneself with god occurs via the spirit, not religion, just like jesus said it does, and just like i have experienced.
and now, i must serenade you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGt-8adyabk
It seems to me that religeon is to all intents and purposes 'spirituality for beginners'. You make of the message what you can, and subsequently refer to it for guidence, or reaffermation, or to clarify some fuzzy point impeding spiritual understanding.
I think the point of Jung's 23 or so basic models of 'Gods' avatar' is well made and pertinent to the question. The diversity of the worlds' religeons recedes the closer you look at thier basic tenets. That they should diversify over time and culture is just fitness for purpose in Darwinian terms. Those that aren't useful eventually get lost or cast aside. That the parables or the wisdom of Solomon endure is, I think, testament to thier continuing relavence. After all, it was written by modern humans (by historical standards).
It would make sense if the world religeons grew more diverse the further away you got from the original migration out of Africa. I would be interested if there was evidence of this as it would show a more linear path to the (presumed) source.
I think the point of Jung's 23 or so basic models of 'Gods' avatar' is well made and pertinent to the question. The diversity of the worlds' religeons recedes the closer you look at thier basic tenets. That they should diversify over time and culture is just fitness for purpose in Darwinian terms. Those that aren't useful eventually get lost or cast aside. That the parables or the wisdom of Solomon endure is, I think, testament to thier continuing relavence. After all, it was written by modern humans (by historical standards).
It would make sense if the world religeons grew more diverse the further away you got from the original migration out of Africa. I would be interested if there was evidence of this as it would show a more linear path to the (presumed) source.
you're talking about TRADITION. who cares?!
you're worried about whether you should have turkey on thanksgiving or ham on christmas, when what really matters is that you eat something, sometime, or else you'll die of starvation!
Its a bit more detailed than that but at least you've got your nose pointing in the right direction now
even if we want to ride with that idea, it would still make it the most valued of concepts, having been consistent for 70 000 years
well duh ... even the atheistic pro-jungians would agree
:shrug:
kind of like saying that every instance of medical application has a specific theoretical basis and that there is no way to categorize varying applications into some sort of schematic outlook (so when you get every bone broken in your body in a car crash, you land in an epistemological muddle since you could potentially go to an acupuncturist, a masseur or the X-Ray and plastering department of a conventional hospital)
on the contrary, if we theoretically understand what acupuncture and the like are about, we can make a decision where to go to fix multiple compound fractures
theoretical understanding simply requires one understand various general terms and the ideology it works out of - for instance a majority of atheists don't qualify, despite having a degree of familiarity with the terms, because they insist (for the sake of driving home their ideology) on not working within the ideology (like for instance viewing all terms of theistic discussion within the parameters of the ideology that the world is meant for their enjoyment ... and hence god is cruel etc)
Philosophy is the medium through which such problems are resolved, and it doesn't require omniscience or megalomania
at the moment my criticisms are solely about viewing the world in a particular fashion and how it is or isn't conducive to god realization in general.
This doesn't require vast reserves of realization ... anymore than how one conclude that aerobics isn't conducive for the immediate recovery of multiple compound fractures (provided one has a general frame work for progressive health to work out of at the onset I guess)
political is about the (pertinacious) power relationships between a group of people (usually to meet some temporal end) and religion is about one's relationship with god (usually to meet some eternal end).
If we talk about the two not being mutually exclusive, its because the instances happen to stand outside the guidelines given in parentheses
that's generally what is done already in the NOD and other texts (Madhurya kadumbini, etc)
well for a starter the initial comments were made in the context of international conflict which finds the expression of armed conflict. If you want to broaden the terms to conflict in general, I think you have to also broaden the applications of it - for instance there is philosophical conflict, ideological conflict, etc and work with the merits of that.
As such, the justification "they are in maya"etc can be deemed as valid or invalid according to the circumstances it is used in(much like the justification of using an armored division in war can be deemed as valid or invalid).
IOW I am not talking about conflict per se (which is the overbearing working of existence in general for anyone graced with conditioned existence), but the reasons, valid and invalid, for it.
So you require people to believe certain aspects of your ideology (i.e. "work within the ideology") in order for you to explain how those certain aspects of your ideology are correct... which rather makes your explaination moot to those people... since they already believe.
And to those who don't believe you, you cry foul of them not "working within the ideology"...
And yet you still deny your's to be a case of "believe to believe". :shrug:
To put you at ease, LG, I can categorically confirm that if I believed what you do... if I "worked within the ideology"... then I would certainly believe in God and everything else you do.
The point, LG, is that many here simply don't believe what you do, and your efforts at explaining seem to require one to already believe... "believe to believe". Hey ho.
And your criticism seems to be solely that this other world-view does not need/require a realisation of god... i.e. you're saying: "you're wrong because it doesn't allow for god".
And yet throughout all of this you also seem utterly unable to also do what you criticise these others of: you seem incapable of working within the ideology they speak from.
Like all your examples they seem entirely based on the "material" realm. Hardly conducive for persuading that there is anything else?