Not sure about you interesting people, but for me squeezing in between such extremes is almost mind-boggling.
Spidergoat, you have cause for your statements; but be careful there. Many years ago, I had a lot of yes's and no's, and many writings that I would tolerate, others that I would not. I can understand how prejudices built up over the years against the evangelical and fundamental Christians, as well as extremes in other religions, came to be, along with an inclination to toss whatever might have to do with the idea of a power bigger and mightier than we are. I appreciate also the contention, and it is true that there are errors in the Christian Bible, and probably in all religious writ, just as there are mighty error in glorified history books.
The difference seems to be that the convenient thing for many, and the most politically acceptable, is to call any convictions which might come subsequently "not a religion." I too, used to say that what I believed was not a religion, but a truth, whatever that meant, -until I discovered that I was possibly the only one who thought this lack of specification had a significant meaning. Do you understand what I am saying?
First, we find a need to sound scholastic, whether that is out goal or not, and to do so, we need to shed some of that old stuff, right. We embrace Darwin's theory, kiss Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, and maybe Kant, Hegel, and some others. These are now "our" wise men. As we identify ourselves with these folks and other "grand" atheists, we are so sure that we must be of superior intelligence, and can battle our way out of what we consider to be ignorance, so matter who is spreading it. We shake our wise heads and read and converse with the best of the crop.
The sad part is, we too often stop even considering other possibilities, rather everything that does not smell of acedemia is carefully avoided. Then we leave the schools of higher learning, and venture into the business world, all prepared now to climb the corporate ladder, while delighting in our wits and our resilence. What can hurt us; we have studied the best, thrown out the worst, and settled for nothing but logicical conclusions. We just know that we are smart, and have some important answers for all these silly people with whom we must now mix!
We forget that Neitzsche said that "truth may be "the most useful form of error that we have known." Will Durant quotes Bertrand Russell as having abandoned logic as the science of reasoning, and made it "the science of the most complete abstractions."
I am sure you are probably familiar with more than I, but my point is quite the same as Socrates and Apostle Paul, we know not enough to brag about. [That is P. M. Thorne's rendition
)
Sure toss the Bible, as though there is nothing worthwhile in it; you will be the poorer for it just as I was when I was too good for philosophy. Yes, I thought that it was something to avoid, nonsense and brain washing. I robbed myself in favor of religious material.
Now, I say, for one thing I am proud, and this is that when I began to notice how much I did not know, I tossed out nothing. I beat the hell out of a lot of preconceived ideas, but I remember and respect them for exactly what they were. Though I rarely read fiction, or religious material anymore, I have five bibles, and a concordance to which I refer from time to time. I do not take the entire Bible literally. There are errors specifically in the O.T., and God only knows for sure about the New. But I have a Spirit within me, no different than you --would be my guess, that touches me just as a beautiful water fall touches me, or the sound of thunder, pouring rain on a tin roof, or the quiet of the sunshine scattering on the ground through the trees. Oh, I believe in God, folks, and I am not ashamed of it. No church, no religion, no atheist, and nothing that has happened to me, around me, in my life has taken that assurance from me. I love philosophy and history. Schopenhauer, or rather reading about him, inspired me to write a poem about the awful way such men were treated, -you know, something like that early philosopher that was ostercized for saying the sun was a ball of fire, and therefore accused of having no piety.
I love them all. Please do not become so high and mighty that you can see no good in a thing until you have come to know it. .........Pmt
