dagblog - Comments for "Bewitching Jesus"

In Christ... According to

oldenGoldenDecoy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:27:50 +0000

In reply to Awesome quote. In my opinion,

In Christ...

According to OGD's grandmother.

Salvation is by faith. It’s not enough to simply have belief unless the outcome of that belief results in an act of commitment to Christ that results in a changed life that bears fruit.

A simple act of compassion, condolence and/or understanding for another's trials and/or tribulations is a form of "works" in the sense of the act of "faithing". A simple act of helping to show another "the way".

Separate from the mind that which resides in the heart.

~OGD~

Let's resume offline at a

Patrick — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:40:31 +0000

In reply to It doesn't differ much,

Let's resume offline at a later date.

It doesn't differ much,

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:38:22 +0000

In reply to Exactly what, then, is your

It doesn't differ much, either for me or for a vast number of other religious believers. (And by "vast number," I'm estimating a ten-digit figure.)

Did you, um, not know that?

I feel this has gone beyond friendly debate (although I don't doubt your friendly intentions). So if you're going to ask the answers to any more extremely simple questions, try not to phrase them as if you were asking out of your superior knowledge.

If it is your contention that religious practices, by virtue of being religious, are fundamentally supersitious, you are free to maintain that fairly simple worldview. But if you intend to persuade others to that postion, try to make a case that fits the observable reality of how actual religious believers behave. (And if you're a rationalist who doesn't care about observable facts in the phenomenal world, I would submit that you're not a rationalist at all.)

If your contention is that any reference to a divine being, however abstract or metaphorical, makes something occult, I would say that you are overlooking actual behavior in pursuit of a Manichean (dare I say Zoroastrian?) distinction.

There are enormous numbers of religious believers who pray as personal and moral reflection: Episcopalians, Hindus, Jews, Mormons, Shiites and Sunni, Baptists, Lutherans, Baha'i, you name it. If you have not noticed these people, it's partly because the noisy magical thinkers get a lot more media, and partly because you haven't paid attention.

On the other hand, a significant portion of the people whose meditation or reflections make no appeal to any divinity have nonetheless have turned their meditation or reflection into a magical practice. (Although, of course, many people meditate, both inside and outside religious practices, with no such delusions.) The magical-thinking meditators believe that meditating will influence the world in some way. That is the difference.

I would contend that people in twelve-step programs who use thoughts of some "higher power" in order to help them focus their willpower and overcome their addiction are not doing magic by any means. Their request that their higher power assist them is a method of self-discipline found in different ways in a wide variety of practices. Asking God to help you avoid drinking is not an attempt to do magic. (Asking God to spare you from a hangover, on the other hand, is clearly an attempt at magic, and good luck with that.) The appeal to the higher power is an attempt to re-imagine your relationship to your own willpower in order to focus and strengthen it. Yes, twelve-steppers imagine themselves letting go of their wills and "surrendering" in order to achieve the willpower that prevents them from drinking. Even if that doesn't make sense to you, large numbers of people have gotten observable results with that technique. It isn't magic if it works.

On the other hand, there are readers of The Secret who believe that they can bring themselves large amounts of money by thinking specific thoughts. That is clearly a magical practice, and it doesn't involve spells, incantations, or supernatural beings. The "Power of Positive Thinking" becomes a magical practice when it crosses the line from a self-disciplinary tool to an attempt to "bring luck." No God involved, but a whole lot of delusion and superstition.

I would go further. There are widely observable religious practices and large populations of relgious believers who are much saner and much less involved in magical thinking than adherents of many allegedly secular, but tautological and epistemologically closed-off belief systems. An Episcopalian priest who prays to Jesus while trying to make moral decisions is not nearly as superstitious or irrational as, for example, some free-market fundamentalists who believe all will be well as long as we do not sin against The Invisible Hand.

A generalized belief in the overall benevolence of the universe and in the power of love is not nearly as primitive or superstitious as the belief that all taxation is bad for the economy. The Episcopalian is restricting her non-empirical beliefs to non-empirical domains. The Adam Smith cultist is applying his non-empircial beliefs to the phenomenal world, and observable evidence be damned.

Awesome quote. In my opinion,

Jesus Lover — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:23:41 +0000

In reply to The bit about whether to lie

Awesome quote. In my opinion, living as you want just because you "think" you're saved is ridiculous. Jesus also said "now go and sin no more". And "faith without works is dead".

Exactly what, then, is your

Patrick — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:47:00 +0000

In reply to Did I not just say "focus

Exactly what, then, is your god's actual role in this prayer?

Unresponsive and non-participating audience of a one-sided conversation? How does this differ from internal reflection that involves no god at all?

Did I not just say "focus

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:12:06 +0000

In reply to As I said before, you are

Did I not just say "focus one's own spiritual goals?"

I don't pray to God to do anything for me. Prayer is not a substitute for action, but a way of contemplating action.

After I've finished praying I have more to do than I did before I started.

As I said before, you are

Patrick — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:32:00 +0000

In reply to Thank you, Patrick, for

As I said before, you are making distinctions within the world of occult beliefs, though you try to separate most of Christianity from the occult:

"her travels from occultism to her specific version of Christainity"

"both occultists and Christians like..."

As a shorthand using the masses' understanding of "occult," that distinction makes sense. (Occult = not MY religion) But that distinction isn't valid. My loaded language was a refusal to gloss over the occultish aspects by using shiny terminology.

You make good points about the "Christian" Right not really following the teachings of Jesus. They need to be called on that.

And you make good points about praying for tangible things to happen and expecting them to happen. I understand that distinction.

But again, that's a distinction of degree. If you pray TO a god expecting even intangible or afterlife effects, you still have the mindset that your god will take action and use his or her magic to do something for you. Praying to a god to do better with your temper is not the same as meditating to reinforce the idea you should change that on your own. Why pray to a god "for" anything if you don't want magic help?

Thank you, Patrick, for

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:45:00 +0000

In reply to All well and good and a nice

Thank you, Patrick, for keeping it nice and reasonable.

Let me gratefully decline to have you characterize my beliefs. I take it, from your cannibal/vampire reference, both that you object to the ritual of communion and that you feel free to specify my personal understanding of it.

It is apparently your contention that I consider the doctrine of transubstantion to be literally true, and am under the impression that when I swallow a communion wafer that I am actually eating human flesh in some real sense.

It is my position that I don't believe anything of the kind. (I am very aware at Sunday brunch that I am getting my first protein of the day.) And you telling me that I do believe such a thing is not terribly convincing, least of all to me.

Is transubstantiation not the official position of my church? You got me. That is why I went to pains in the original post to point out that it is more common that not for individual worshippers within a single congregation to follow very different practices and interpret their faith in different ways. (I certainly think this is true of Wiccans, some of whom are following an interesting spiritual practice and others of whom are deluding themselves that they have arcane powers. The first group of Wiccans are interesting to talk to; the second, not so much.)

As for your position that all forms of religion, or all forms of Christianity, are equally occult, with no distinctions between them: I would say that praying and performing rituals in the hope of affecting events in the phenomenal world is very distinct from praying and performing rituals in the understanding that they do not accomplish anything tangible.

I see a pretty big distinction between praying as a way to reflect on one's spiritual goals (say, hoping to be more patient and less short-tempered) and praying to make it rain or to get a promotion. And I would say that most people can grasp that distinction quite easily.

All well and good and a nice

Patrick — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:11:00 +0000

In reply to Thanks for all the kind

All well and good and a nice description of where she fits - within the world of the supernatural, magic and occult, of which you are also a part.

You can't use those words to set her truly apart from you when you go to a church that calls upon magic to have a cannibal/vampire ceremony.

Your version of Christianity is no less occult than hers, just like there's no such thing as being a little pregnant.

Thanks for all the kind

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:45:36 +0000

In reply to Bewitching Jesus

Thanks for all the kind words, folks! I'm electronically blushing!