dagblog - Comments for "No More Bible Stories"

A great blog and discussion

Elusive Trope — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:49:49 +0000

A great blog and discussion regarding religion and its role in our lives. What one generally sees out there on web and in the actual world when people decide to confront the topic is a back and forth of one sentence name calling.

The difficulty in dealing with the topic is evident by this discussion thread - it can't be easily dealt with a few paragraphs. Most people in our times (as I suspect has been true for all of human history) don't have the patience or the willingness to tackle the plethora of minutia that exists in a discussion of the topic. To put in modern terms, they want the PowerPoint presentation where there are a minimal number of slides and lots of colorful graphs.

Moreover, people cannot separate their personal experiences with the actual house or houses of worship and actual congregations they grew up with. The feeling about religion gets tied to a specific manner of a minister for instance or an singular experience of humiliation in Sunday school.

It is further complicated by the fact that a specific understanding of religion become tied to a multitude of facets of one's personal life - from feelings about wealth to politics. To start to question one's particular understanding of religion and the spiritual means one ends up having to question everything about how one has lived one's life.

If one has always understood a particular text to be sacred the ultimate word of God, then to question that means one ends up questioning one's understanding and beliefs in just about everything. That is an experience which leads to a moment when there is nothing solid beneath one feet (the experience of the Absurd). The goal is to avoid this discomfort at all costs, which usually leads one to return to the concrete beliefs of one's past.

Furthermore, there is the hedging of one's bets as mentioned above. Even if one does not have a pure faith in Heaven, there is the feeling that it may be true. And one does not want to die and find out that they are going to be turned away from whatever the pearly gates turns out to be. As they say, there are no atheists in a foxhole, just as people tend to get more religious, the older they get and closer to the reality of their own mortality.

And if the authority of one's beliefs say that this or that text is sacred, this or that ritual is required, well then, it is better to not question that. Just in case.

At the same time, modern Western culture has instilled in many folks an understanding of Individualism. Having spent most of my life in the liberal urban areas of the Northwest, I have been surrounded by people who try very hard to make it clear they are "spiritual, not religious." This is driven in great part by a rejection of a spiritual Authority which dictates to them what is and isn't. They are enabled as individuals to follow the spiritual path which resonates the most with them. They become their own spiritual authority, the only one who can say which path to travel.

(My parents, dissatisfied with the Church they were attending because of the particular congregation cold-shoulder treatment of mom, who had just married my step-father, went, as they put, "shopping for a new Church." They ended up in entirely new denomination as a result.)

Still they tend not to give up on religion all together, and eventually find a new Authority replace the old one left behind. It seems almost a deep genetic impulse. In Christianity this impulse can be seen in the need to referring to God as our Father and Jesus as the Son.

Even with Buddhism which is technically not a religion, but merely a practice, people end up turning it into a religion. In Tibet, they merged Buddhism with the old gods of the people in order for the people to accept it.

In the end, I would say most people cannot deal with the result of letting go of the religious traditions and Authority of what is and isn't because this ends with the realization as Camus put it: "While everything is permitted, not everything is acceptable." Living by a moral and ethical code that is simply developed by humans, and therefore open to modified or rejected as new understandings are revealed is too uncomfortable. They need to know Father will punish them if they do the wrong thing. Otherwise why not do this or that "bad" thing if one knows one is going to get away with it. If all one has to turn to is one's own sense of right and wrong to guide one's own behavior, well, that is just too much to bear. Best to just not question the sacredness of the this or that text.

Hmmm.... I do have several

EmmaZahn — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:07:27 +0000

In reply to It's not the same as worship

Hmmm....

I do have several family Bibles in my care dating back to mid-1800s but all bodies are buried. The leaves of a couple of the Bibles are interlaced with memorabilia including locks of hair and sprigs of funeral wreaths of family members. I see my hands tremble when I look through them so, yes, they are sacred to me. I would never consider burying them but if disposal becomes necessary burning them with holly wood seems appropriate. Thanks for the idea. The hollies need to be pruned anyway. I will season and stow the trimmings just in case and for some other things that remain. Some rooms here are nothing but reliquaries. Like Faulkner said. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

It's not the same as worship

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:32:00 +0000

In reply to As I said those are things I

It's not the same as worship either. I would call sanctity a matter of respect--like leaving flowers at grave or standing during the national anthem.

Jewish tradition treats a holy book like a human being--which is why you bury them when they wear out. Now you might think it's silly to ritually bury a book just because it has the name of God in it, but why is it more silly than ritually burying a corpse because it used to be a live human being? It only seems silly if you don't believe that the thing is worthy of respect.

PS Interestingly, American flags also have specific disposal guidelines.

I was free associating.

moat — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:18:19 +0000

In reply to It's a different kind of ark

I was free associating. Synagogues have that effect upon me.

I do think it is reasonable to see the "container" of a Torah in a different light than the items held in the ark of the covenant. The first is written by humans whereas the second is supposed to have been printed by other means.

OMG, Catholic theology sure

EmmaZahn — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:25:33 +0000

In reply to How about thinking about it

OMG, Catholic theology sure knows how to split hairs, doesn't it. But remember, my culture is Protestant and from the same link:

In Protestant churches, veneration is sometimes considered to amount to the heresy of idolatry, and the related practice of canonization amounts to the heresy of apotheosis. Protestant theology usually denies that any real distinction between veneration and worship can be made, and claims that the practice of veneration distracts the Christian soul from its true object, the worship of God. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin writes that "(t)he distinction of what is called dulia and latria was invented for the very purpose of permitting divine honours to be paid to angels and dead men with apparent impunity."^[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration#Christian_Iconoclasm

I appreciate your thoughts and examples of the museums.

Sometimes I am drawn into a transcendental experience that feels to me like a communion with the universe*. I guess it is a kind of ecstasy because it always leaves me with a feeling of joy or bliss. That's about the closest I come to any kind of worship. I do find the unprogrammed Quaker meetings appealing.

Also, I do try to remember to be grateful for any 'tender mercies' I receive.

*aka the powers that be. Nothing good ever comes from trying to define the indefinable or describe the indescribable. That's how holy wars start.

Nazis melting after

jollyroger — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:48:01 +0000

In reply to It's a different kind of ark

Nazis melting after injudiciously looking...

How about thinking about it

artappraiser — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:13:00 +0000

In reply to As I said those are things I

How about thinking about it this way: You aren't allowed into a rare book library in the west unless you are willing to treat the items with respect and reverence. To an Amazonian tribesman , they are just pigment on paper. It's about symbolic respect and reverence.

I know people who treat their paintings by Rothko like they are very holy objects, and they are to them, they give them inspiration that stirs their soul. And many people in major art museums whisper as if they are in a church rather than acting like they are surrounded by arrangements of oil paint on canvas by persons talented in that skill. Those of us in the art business often forget about the whole holy thing in museums, and often end up being the naughty guys, shushed by others when we talk too loud, and reprimanded by guards when we forget that here you cannot touch the "sacred" objects as we are used to doing

Your questions remind me of Catholic Church theology on the whole thing, it is complicated, with several levels of respect, but certain things pounded into you when you go to parochial school, so you don't end up worshipping idols or even worshipping icons like those some of those nearly pagan Eastern Orthodox or those uneducated new converts making a grave mistake without knowing it! For example, there's the difference between veneration and adoration, and doing the latter is a sin if you do it to anyone else but God.

As I said those are things I

EmmaZahn — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:44:34 +0000

In reply to All good things, but I don't

As I said those are things I am in awe of. Maybe things I revere will be closer to your idea of sacred.

Mostly what you might call values.

At the top of the list is honesty, especially self or intellectual honesty.

Also, goodwill or benignity.

Fairness.

But I think you are may be asking more about what, if anything, I worship. If so, you will have to clarify for me what that word means to you. Genuflection? Tribute?

? is awesome but not as much

EmmaZahn — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:43:14 +0000

In reply to Don't mention irrational

π is awesome but not as much as φ.

Don't mention irrational

Verified Atheist — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:51:34 +0000

In reply to All good things, but I don't

Don't mention irrational numbers to a Pythagorean…