I thought about leaving this intentionally blank, as a joke… but that’d hardly benefit anyone would it? you’ve clicked you want substance. you’ve clicked because apart of you is curious about this new religion… is it another line of BS that has become all too common? is it mixing of old ideas to make new? Is it more relativism?
What attracts people to religion? social interaction.
What is god than? God is awakened through social interaction. we are social creatures and thrive on being social.
Why do we strive to play team sports? When your part of a team, you have something in common with them. It’s by no accident that the movie “any given sunday” is dripping with religious metaphors. All sports by their very nature are religious experiences. Whether you are on 3rd and goal, or in the stands cheering on your team, with the thousands of other people that after the game will go back to living their seperate lives.
So what is the new religion?
The new religion is the old religion minus all the bullshit. Why do we go to church? to hear how we can avoid going to hell, or to learn when the next social gathering is to play a little flag football (your sport may vary by country.)
The new religion is about finding something you enjoy and joining a group of others partaking in that activity. The new religion is realizing that we are always in the holy church of god.
You are making it very simple and rejecting the experiences and needs of billions of people throughout history. If there is one problem with Religion, it is based upon human interpretation and organisation – but that is also one of its strengths too. You can’t get “The Divine†in it’s pure state and as much as fundamentalists of all colours wish it to be so, the Bible didn’t drop from heaven, but the inspiration passed through the minds and hearts of human beings on its way to becoming scripture.
What attracts people to religion? It is really the hope that there are answers to questions that are common to all human beings on the globe. Each religion has its own cultural background, each religion has its age old traditions, customs and social position within society. It is the need for a balance against the purely rational that attracts people to the metaphysical, knowing that rationality can hardly explain our existence.
One problem of religion is the need for relevance in the here and now of a tradition that is thousands of years old. Traditions which still have links to the reasons behind customs, which maintain a universality in their expression and which support the intuitive understanding of traditions are ageless. It is where tradition is antiquated, its customs are primitive and people have a fear of calling wrath upon themselves by forgetting some aspect of that tradition that religion becomes musty.
There is no doubt that social interaction is a part of many religions – but that is because it is part of being human, not that it has anything inherently to do with religion. Religion must acknowledge our humanity to appeal to us and be relevant in our lives, but religion is on another level to social intercourse. Religion may bring us together and call us to service within society, but it can also call us to total independence of society.
“God†or the Ineffable is therefore not so easily identified – which can hardly surprise us after ten thousand years of “civilisation†and the great diversity of deities and principles. We can only go back to the origins of each movement and ask why did they emerge? Judaism it seems, grew out of a distaste for idolatry and an awareness that the Ineffable is not bound to a block of stone or wood or metal. Isaac seems to understand that the Ineffable gives us space within the bustling of co-existence in conflict. Jakob discovers that the Ineffable is not something that is bound to an area or a people, but seeks direct inspirational exchange and goes with us.
In this way, the lessons that people are taught by the Mystery are diverse and each tradition can produce numerous examples. The Way of Christ goes forth from Judaism and provides further examples, the Greek understanding of a Christianity separated from its Semitic roots develops this in yet another direction, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox have diverse experiences and so it goes on.
Your problem and indeed the problem over the last two centuries has been identifying the “bullshit†as you put it. It isn’t that easy. You may say that certain aspects of religion are undesirable, the next person has other aspects and in the end we have nothing in common. I learnt late on that the creed isn’t as much my own witness as the common ground on which I stand with others – however I may stand with respect to certain statements within the creed. If I cannot see myself as a part of the collective, I must stop saying the creed with others. But if I can be a part of the Church, accepting all differences, knowing that we all only “know†in part, we can achieve something.
If you send people off to be their own religion in a conceivably thin margin, you will find that they are like seed that falls on the wayside and are trampled under, or seed that falls amongst the thorns and is throttled whilst growing. It is bad enough if the seed falls on hard ground and cannot take root, but what you are proposing leads to nothing at all.
We don’t need another religion. We need awakened hearts and then perhaps religion could have meaning past flag football or bingo night. The need and the desire is there, but we start with religion to reach our spiritual selves. We need to reverse the process.
Yeah, scy has his little ideas.
Imagine people finding satisfaction and meaning within reality instead of insanity? HEheh, yeah right!
Dream on, whores.
Their needs go beyond social interaction that is true, but some people have trouble connecting A (their own life) to B (the life of or story of the life of those people in the “holy” books.), I think social interactions, provide that link. It’s not rejecting the needs of those people, it’s reapplying them through a way in which modern people can better understand.
In the same way that romeo and juliet has been re-written thousands of times and the names changed, the story of humanity has been re-written in ways to better connect it to the people.
Social involvement helps us realize that we are part of a greater flock. That connection can help us connect to the cliches’. Many of the people would develop that greater yearning and at that point you can help give them the additional tools they need to unlock the truth.
Until then it’s like handing a gun to an infant. They don’t know how to use it, and when they do it’s never going to have a good outcome.
right, because they haven’t built up to understanding the purpose of the tools they are given. They know the tools are important but they just know how to use it one way.
As much as you want (and others) not everyone can connect spiritually to the bible. You can’t throw the bible at everyone and expect it to ring true with all of them… many of them will either deny it does anything for them (because they are still in the stage of denial.) or they will not know how to use such a complex and powerful tool.
and is it not true that one of the common questions is “why am I alone”, or “am I alone”? By having some sort of social interaction weekly, whether or not it’s connected to the more powerful supernatural reasons, will help a great majority of these people. Each job needs the right tool.
That’s simply not true, many traditions are done without any reason or concept of why they started. Why partake of the bread and wine weekly? (or at passover) because the pastor says jesus commanded it? In the new testament they were doing so to remember him. how can you remember someone you’ve never seen?
or how about baptism? remember again, that baptism in the bible is connected intimately to christ and actually seeing christ. (paul’s epistles connect baptism to spiritual resurrection, but the true meaning has been lost through misinterpretation and the ages.)
Most cultural practices are done merely because you want to maintain them. Is there anything wrong with admitting that? perhaps if you develop an honesty about tradition more youth will be willing to maintain that tradition?
right! And my aim is to seperate the two… (well not completely) some people are only initialy seeking the social interaction and they don’t understand the religious tools that are coupled to them. This is where the fundie problem comes in. They are given a bible and don’t know how to use it. Much like giving a child a gun this is a huge mistake.
it is, and for you it answers ineffable questions for god. Many other people are just looking for social interaction.
Some want a connection for god, and for them they should probably be weaned onto god, and not dropped the full dogmatic bible.
would you assume that one type of ground works for every seed?
Every seed is different and requires different conditions to flourish.
that is definately one of my propositions
your seed is flailing without water.
your right. We don’t need another religion. We need something that is better than other religions. Something that can connect to all people, in all states. For some that would be bingo night or flag football. For others that would be the state of studying myths of the past to find your place in the present. Wouldn’t it be better still to study those myths with others instead of merely bouncing ideas of your own id?
You and I have been over this ground so many times it looks like an ad for a rototiller. I would like to say that it is possible, but our history denies it. Bob tried a thread on ‘creative’ story-telling as a possible way of infusing spirit and understanding into the words. Bob got handed his head by the literalists and those who would ‘protect’ those words.
And that is the Wednesday night bible study class. It’s being done. And depending on those who lead and the nature of those in the group, perhaps there can be some positives taking place. (Bob doesn’t fail ALL the time… ) But the moment you begin to look for new or more relevent or expanded language interpretation you run afoul the established churches or their holy texts - and that is both the strength of tradition as well as its failure.
I’ve finally accepted that spiritual exploration is an intensely personal issue, not readily shared in a group setting, at least not an honest exploration. Why one does, and a hundred don’t might be interesting, but there is no easy answer, and all the answers I have seen eventually lead back to the same thing one has left.
There is a sea of sharks around us. Those who hold the value of the word… and those who hold the value of no word.
I’m surprised JT… it’s not being done, and I daresay that Wednesday night bible class only welcomes their particular interpretation of the “word”.
Perhaps… But more likely than not what you get in seminary (from what I remember) is absolute espousing of one particular viewpoint. It’s hardly open night at the mic.
no not ALL the time… not even MOST of the time, I think Bob is one of the great thinkers of ILP. He’s one that truly shows the pen is mighter than the sword.
The strength of tradition…
well it’s the two fold stories you hear.
On the one hand it’s good to have a strong foundation as when the whispering winds come by you’ll be less likely to bend to their wills… however when the demanding gusts roll in, if you are unable to bend you’ll break.
it speaks volumes for moderation and conglomeration… but of course … moderation need only go so far. If you become to much of a relativist than the word means nothing.
okay, I can buy that. Would you say that the group setting can bring you closer to something yet still? Perhaps being with the group (doing whatever be it praying, running, riding, etc.) brings you a step closer to nirvana?
it’s like the tools I was talking about to Bob in my previous post… every individual needs different tools at different times, and giving the un abridged word (no matter what word) to just anyone is akin to giving a gun to a small child. That is why we’ve had so many problems with errant fundamentalism.
it’s not that one does and a hundred don’t it’s that we are using the wrong tools for the job.
A group setting, two or more can find some agreement, even close agreement, in understanding, but our understanding of that which is all remains personal. The how shall we live? questions are more easily dealt with in a group setting because it is much like horseshoes… close counts.
True, but it is still the very few who awaken to the fact that they are using the wrong tools…
You may be onto a valid point, but I think you mean re-enactment rather that interaction. Rituals are often a kind of re-enactment of traditions in which life is renewed and contemplation of those traditions is made possible. Of course the older ones, like Judaism and Christianity, are more complex and have many facets.
There is no doubt that social involvement is a part of such traditions along the lines that, since you are going to be doing something, do something good for people. “Work as if it were a prayer, and pray as if it were work - ora et labora!†For me that is the ultimate sign of progress, and I feel that much of our material gain only clutters up our lives and takes resources away from our children and their children.
I feel that the one thing that is expected of spiritual people is to assume reward at the end for doing good – even if it may appear to some as Pascal’s wager – and not to doubt it. However, the more we dwell on that subject, the more it endangers us and makes all we do seem like a struggle to get a window seat in heaven. It is trust that adorns the spiritual best of all - “blessed is he who believes without seeing!â€
I am aware of that, since the Bible has many grave lessons that our society is busy painting over. But it is true of many deeply spiritual sources, of which many are only scratched on the surface by the rich and the educated. That is why there are so many pseudo-religions. People try to get to the results by detouring around the content – but the contemplation and living the Myth makes it real, not the results without content.
Hopefully it helps them understand how to ask the right question, “What am I alone for? What should I be doing with my loneliness?†The lesson of the Bible is that each yearning, whether hunger, thirst, love or whatever, has something that satisfies it. So too does every deficiency that I feel point to something that can make me feel complete. It isn’t “perfection†in the sense of flawlessness that we need, but wholeness, culmination, unity, balance. Once we have experienced this, we are satisfied for the rest of our lives.
Our problem is that the driving forces in our societies are trying to make us insatiable, bating us for their causes, taking away the ground for peace, driving us on in an imaginary race against time. This frenzy is the result of deep insecurity in the face of ultimate material wealth. Those poor souls can only push us on, or break down and accept that they have nothing that they could take into the grave – but that would be less than nothing. It would be a huge debt that they have run up against the rest of humanity. A “sin†of gigantic proportions.
Quote:
Traditions which still have links to the reasons behind customs, which maintain a universality in their expression and which support the intuitive understanding of traditions are ageless.
The statement that Jesus told us to break bread and drink wine in his memory is an allegory, just as the broken body and the spilled blood is a part of that allegory. It means that we follow him to the end, taking part in his sacrifice, taking his spirit in and living his life. It is the acknowledgement that our greatest sin is the inability to be so consequent, our deepest separation from God is the inability to live that life and die that death. It is our fear that separates us and it is his consolation that we seek: “Fear not, for I have overcome the world.â€
Re-enacting this last supper has him, the Kyrie, washing our feet, telling us that we will understand later. It takes us to Gethsemane, to the Sanhedrin, to Pilate and to the cross. It takes us to Peter and the Cock crowing out our guilt. It takes us to the upper room, where we hide in fear of the authorities. And it takes us to Easter Sunday, when the women tell us that they have seen him, and that we should go to Galilee. It finally installs in us the trust and the courage of Pentecost.
I would like to say that it is possible, but our history denies it. Bob tried a thread on ‘creative’ story-telling as a possible way of infusing spirit and understanding into the words. Bob got handed his head by the literalists and those who would ‘protect’ those words.