Turtle,
Can you explain how spirituality is an aspect of secular humanism? Does secular humanism include religious concepts, just unnamed as such? It’s taking the advice of spiritual masters without giving them credit for giving such advice?
Why are you asking me? You are the one who is ‘following the path of love’… I have no idea what that means in a practical sense. What do you do that is different from the ‘path of indifference’ or the ‘path of hate’?
ier why is this so important to pin this down…why do we have to give credit to spiritual masters…wouldn’t it be better to give credit to the ideas that they are talking about…the ideas are what is important…people start worshipping the guy rather than his ideas…
Not necessarily. I don’t worship Kierkegaard or Eckhart or Tillich or Lewis, but I respect their takes on spirituality and religion. Of course, respect is due to their ideas, but only insofar as one is able to use these ideas for the purpose of having a more purposeful life.
I wasn’t saying you worship these guys…but how about jesus
I wasn’t saying you worship these guys…but how about jesus
I worship Jesus by following the way (Tao) ascribed to him in the NT. It is the way of love,
Rubbish, Kierkegaard was rid of religion. You need to follow his example.
Worshiping a person, or the idea of a person is anti-spiritual.
Take off your shoes and run in the wild in the rain and the wind, that is where the spirit lives.
The ideology of Jesus us is hateful.
in what way do you worship jesus…what does worship mean to you…do you pray to jesus…do you ask for help
I’m tired of the trick questions. Answers go no further than opinions. Can you answer the legitimate question I asked about secular humanism?
Typical lack of understanding. I worship by following, not by names. You still mistake spirit for joie de vivre. That’s only one aspect of spirit. The ideology of Jesus is love, not hate. Those who hate in the name of Jesus are ignorant of his teachings.
easy…certain people want to live a virtuous/healthy/well-being life without any religious authority…they feel that
following the path of love not hate without the church institution is more productive…simple…to me that is an example of following your spirit…
The path of love 
Your friend has mugged an old lady in order to get money to buy drugs.
Do you …
- turn him in to the police so that he turns away from a life of crime and gets cleaned up?
- hide him from the police?
- give him money to buy drugs?
- give money to the old lady?
- do nothing?
Which is the path of love?
Love of whom? … your friend or the old lady or members of society?
Typical lack of empathy and spiritual understanding.
No trick question. It’s just that you are too scared to avoid the truth as usual.
No trick question. It’s just that you are too scared to avoid the truth as usual.
Those aren’t really easy questions to answer, are they phyllo?
Do you turn a dear friend into the police and he lands up in jail which might not serve any purpose for him but will get him off the streets so that he doesn’t hurt another innocent person. That’s a good thing for society but maybe not for him.
But that might not necessarily improve his chances for a better future or get him off the drugs except for a time.
Do you ask him to turn himself in - thus beginning his own rehabilitation? Might you succeed in that? Will he feel enough remorse to do that?
You would certainly not give him money to buy drugs. Giving money to the old lady might only be bribe. She might take it but it wouldn’t really help your friend.
Doing nothing changes nothing except that the next time someone might die and it might be your friend. Guilt and more remorse.
What is the path of love - I suppose it is what goes beyond good and evil - what is the most rational thing to do which causes the less amount of harm for all?
And we’re dealing with human beings who have emotions.
But i think love of whom would begin with your friend…and then extend outward to everyone who he comes in contact with.
What would I do? Maybe see about getting him to a lawyer who might as a result of a hearing after he confesses, if it’s a first-time thing, put him in some rehab program - which might also fail.
Do we throw him to the wolves? Is there a medium ground here in which to walk?
Love is not such an easy path to follow because we don’t know the consequences of such. We don’t want to be sentimental or judgmental either - we just need to do something.
Back to the beginning - what is the best way to love in this case?
To worship is to give extreme reverence and devotion.
If you neither revere nor have any devotion to the teachings of Jesus, then you have no worship of Jesus. The same for anything else.
Today there is a push to worship Nietzsche, merely as an engineering tool with which to cause a new world order, “blind change unto the Ubermensch”.
To worship God merely means to have great reverence and devotion to what it is that causes the universe to be what it is, reality. But that tends to defeat those who are engineering change because their effort to cause change requires that people not see what they are getting themselves into.
Those who propose that others worship nothing are those proposing utter blindness and weakness … usually for an insidious purpose.
james says----------
To worship God merely means to have great reverence and devotion to what it is that causes the universe to be what it is, reality. But that tends to defeat those who are engineering change because their effort to cause change requires that people not see what they are getting themselves into.
Those who propose that others worship nothing are those proposing utter blindness and weakness … usually for an insidious purpose.
[/quote]
turtle says----
james why should anyone worship the reality god…
They think that you’re odd because you simply enjoy sitting in a church with your friends even though your beliefs are different?
I find nothing to be odd about that.
We enjoy/you enjoy being with your friends - and a church, its ambiance -despite our beliefs - can hold something of the spiritual for us/can still bring us peace and serenity. You do believe in a god anyway. You just don’t hold the same view as your friends. So what!
Human beings are social creatures and spiritual creatures. We just renew ourselves in different ways.
Anyway, if your friends think you are odd because of this but love you still - it makes no difference.