Harry

What is the theological basis for abstaining from birth control other than the 'rhythm method?'

 

George

There are two components to birth control, conception and contraception. The Catholic Church is pro-conception and anti-contraception. Abstinence from birth control would mean taking no part in either, total neutrality. As I remember being brought up in my Catholic community, the purpose of marriage was for pro-creation, having a large family raised in the Catholic faith. Women were to be used as baby factories. The Church wants to control the woman and her womb; any theological argument would have to be an argument of total neutrality. There has been no such theological justification that I am aware of. Anyone?

During the past couple of years Republican controlled state legislatures have been passing or trying to pass laws that define when human life begins. Last week Arizona passed a bill that says human life begins when the ovary releases the egg which is two weeks prior to the time conception can take place. Why are they doing this? It is part of a movement to overturn Roe v. Wade. Following is a letter to the editor I submitted yesterday to our local news paper.

Some people of faith claim liberals are waging war against religion but facts show that some religions are trying to control women’s rights to conceive or not by making it difficult for them to obtain contraceptives, family planning services and abortion as part of their base line health insurance coverage. This is a conservative political agenda based on fundamentalist beliefs and it’s coming from churches paying no taxes because of First Amendment religious separation clause exemptions. Catholic bishops are the generals leading this assault on women’s rights.

Throughout history “The Church” has subjugated women and murdered hundreds of thousands of non-believers to spread their irrational dogma. Religion has literally and figuratively been at war with truth and understanding for centuries. Religious fundamentalists feel more threatened today as their children are educated in public schools by an increasingly secular society that accepts truths discovered and proven through scientific endeavor.

It’s not a war against religion but a continuing struggle against institutionalized ignorance and irrational dogmatic belief required by fundamentalist religions. The more scientists learn about the mechanics of the universe and the natural laws that govern its evolution the more irrelevant the myths and superstitions of religion become to our youth.

 

Definition of SUPERNATURAL

1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil.

2a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature.

2b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit).

I don't see "supernatural" as "beyond natural". I understand supernatural as not only natural but natural to perfection. God would be supernatural. I think of natural law coming from a supernatural life force of love, truth and consciousness.

To me the only true reality is my own existence; “###### ergo Sum” all the rest is sensual and therefore posteriori knowledge. Debating the meaning of words with other words the definitions of which are uncertain is an academic exercise but can be entertaining in the right spirit. I can remember back in my youth when I questioned if everything I sensed could be a figament of my active imagination. Things seem as real to me when I dream sometimes as they do when I'm awake.

Why is reality such a contentious issue?

Some of the most interesting science and philosophy I've read in years that I can say I understand comes from this link of Geoff Haselhurst, Karene Howie Here is a small section on Einstein and religion. Sometimes I go to this website and literally spend hours soaking up the information then I spend more hours thinking about it.

Introduction: Pantheist Religion of Albert Einstein

 

Over ten years I have read many hundreds of great philosophers, but of them all I have special affection for Albert Einstein. Having now read Albert Einstein's 'Special and General Relativity', and 'Ideas and Opinions' many times, I thought it would be nice to put up a web page that presented his religious ideas in as simple and ordered way as possible.

Albert Einstein was a beautiful man, wise and moral, who lived in difficult times. I think all people will enjoy the great clarity and wisdom of his ideas, and they will find them very relevant and useful in our modern (and very disturbed) world. As he writes on humanity and true religiousness;

 

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

 

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

 

I share the pantheist religion / philosophy of Albert Einstein that

All is One and Interconnected (Nature, God),of which we humans are an inseparable part. Perhaps I am a romantic, but it is my hope that in the future Humanity will live by the truth, with greater harmony between different people, their religions and cultures, and to life in all its complex beauty.

Albert Einstein's ideas on Physics and Reality are also significant. It was from reading Einstein that I first realised that matter was not made of tiny 'particles'. And having also read Lorentz (who believed in an Absolute Space) I realised that a slight modification of Einstein's ideas on Physical Reality solved many of the problems of modern physics. Einstein represented Matter as Spherical Force Fields which caused 'Relative' Space-Time. This can now be explained by replacing Einstein's Spherical Force Fields with Spherical Wave Motions of Space, which cause Matter, Time and Forces.

Please see links on the side of this page for the main articles which explain and solve many of the problems of postmodern Metaphysics, Physics and Philosophy from the simple foundation of the Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM).

 

We hope you enjoy the Kindness, Beauty and Truth of Albert Einstein.

 

You don't know how happy it makes me to see someone other than me making this point on a "religious" forum! Too often on fora such as this, Christians will compare homosexuality with thievery, alcoholism, debauchery, etc., in an attempt to show that they are not opposed to homosexuality, per se, just "homosexual acts."

 

This frosts me to no end.

 

This issue is particularly personal for me because a young man who was drummed out of a church I attended (using those same arguments), consequently took his own life. I was one of the people to find his body. The image - and the shame of being a member of that church - is forever burned into my mind.

 

NORM

Norm,

Unfortunately there are people who are not progressive but fundamentalist conservatives in that they will not be moved from centuries of what I would call almost genetic beliefs. These people are just as certain that they are right as progressive liberals. Fundamentalists are conservative by definition. Here is a direct quote from the website called a Patheos, dedicated to understanding world religions and religious movements. It claims to be the most accurate and balanced information available on the web written by the world's leading authorities on religion and spirituality.

“Christian Fundamentalism is a conservative movement within American Protestantism that aims to uphold traditional Christian beliefs in the face of many modernist challenges. Christian Fundamentalism arose out of the late 19th and early 20th century conflicts with mainline Protestant churches over modernist challenges, including biblical criticism and interpretation. In response, between 1910 and 1915 conservative scholars from Princeton Theological Seminary published a series of twelve books titled The Fundamentals, which reaffirmed biblical inerrancy and attacked biblical criticism. Soon, Christian fundamentals began founding their own Bible colleges and Bible institutes to teach fundamentalist doctrines to future generations and provide structure to the movement. Christian fundamentalists teach the literal interpretation of scripture and hold to key Christian doctrines, including Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, and salvation from our sins through the grace of God by having faith in Jesus Christ. Besides these doctrines, Christian Fundamentalism is also marked by its conservative social stances, including the refusal to smoke, drink alcohol, or dance. In recent decades, Christian Fundamentalism has also been characterized by its criticism of liberal social and political policies most notably legalized abortion, evolution taught in schools, and gay and lesbian rights.”

The progressive Christians I know are progressive in other areas as well. They are well educated and politically liberal. There are some progressive Christians that may be called moderate but none are called fundamentalists.

Paz

Harry

Just the place for me, this forum: Also a brand new member (yesterday, 3/9). Despite pc familiarity, can't get a handle on the site, which, as I'm beginning to understand is going through its own growing pains. So, I'll keep watching here to get better sense of it. Meanwhile, I'm a former RC priest in 80th year, variety of post clerical experiences, academic and other, muy simpatico with Spong's thinking and analyses, happily learning student of his scriptural commentaries, generally benign malcontent respecting matters of organzied religion. Mostly looking for interchanges about current cosmology and a dozen related subjects, philosophical mostly, but theological too from broadly Christian orientation..

Hi Mick,

I hope you decide to stay and interact with us. It's not often we have the wisdom of 80 years to avail ourselves to. There is another RC priest who was with us on the old Spong forum, he's a missionary in the Amazon region. His name is Roy Joseph O'Shea. I like discussing philosophical stuff and cosmology as well as the next guy.

paz

Harry

As I see it there are two motivating factors for those to want this ban enshrined in our Federal and State Constitutions. The first is homophobia and the second is religion. Both of these motives are selfish and have nothing to do with a threat to the institution of marriage.

Homophobia is not a fear of gays it is the fear of being gay. Some of the most notorious homophobes are anti-gay crusaders and a majority of them are conservatives. I won't go into the long list of names here, anyone with a computer and the time can find these hypocrites. I've learned from my life experiences that people tend to dislike most in others what they fear most in themselves. Anti gay crusaders are often gay themselves and because of fear of being exposed they want others to believe they are as straight as straight can be. Many do this by joining in a "traditional" marriage and having children. This could be the threat they see to traditional marriage, that it will be confused with gay marriage. It makes sense that they would want no ambiguity about marriage.

The religious excuse for persecuting gays is equally as abhorrent and once again it is all about the fear of what others will think of you if you don't speak out against the "sin". Anyone so called Christian who is anti-gay is a hypocrite in one way or the other. There is reason to think that Jesus and the Apostles were gay, especially Paul who had serious problems with women and his own "member".

Someday in the not too distant future, perhaps within the next couple of generations, people will understand that sexuality and gender identity both physiological and psychological are built into our DNA on a broad scalar range with male on one end and female on the other with all kinds of variations in between. We all share 99.999 percent identical DNA but that .001 percent is what makes the difference in our physiological and psychological makeup. Just because someone doesn't fall within the range we consider normal doesn't mean that they are not as natural as everyone else. Science shows us that the number of gays in a population is predictable, thus being gay is a natural occurrence not a choice someone makes after they have reached the age of reason; to believe that is just shows ignorance of established science.

Carl,

I am anxious to hear more of your ideas on consciousness. I too have strong sense that all consciousness does not reside in our skull but the higher levels of consciousness are outside of us and that our brain is somehow our link to universal consciousness and life force itself. I think the brain is like a transmitter/receiver that communicates with outside energy and other dimensions and that it can be tuned or aligned like the IF section of a super hetrodyne receiver

I have a great interest in PSI because I have a step daughter who is a psychic. I've gone to lengths to convince myself that psychics are frauds but the more I study the phenomena the deeper I'm drawn to understand otherwise. The institute of Noetic Sciences is a place I discovered while doing research on PSI. If you are aware of other sites like this that deal with consciousness that you found valuable please share them with us.

Yesterday Stauch was kind enough to share his near death experience with us in a post on Kathy's 911 conspiracy topic. Not only did he have a NDE but he also told us of his prior reincarnations. I take Stauch very seriously because I have an intuitive feeling that he is more in touch with the life force or universal consciousness field than most.

I have a strong feeling that scientists are on the verge of discovery that will be a consciousness paradigm shift for humanity and it will be good. I don't know if the ending of the Aztek calander on 12/21/2012 has anything to do with it or not but we shall see.

Traveling back to Earth, having just walked on the moon, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell had an experience for which nothing in his life had prepared him. As he approached the planet we know as home, he was filled with an inner conviction as certain as any mathematical equation he'd ever solved. He knew that the beautiful blue world to which he was returning is part of a living system, harmonious and whole—and that we all participate, as he expressed it later, "in a universe of consciousness."

 

Trained as an engineer and scientist, Captain Mitchell was most comfortable in the world of rationality and physical precision. Yet the understanding that came to him as he journeyed back from space felt just as trustworthy—it represented another way of knowing.

 

This experience radically altered his worldview: Despite science's superb technological achievements, he realized that we had barely begun to probe the deepest mystery of the universe—the fact of consciousness itself. He became convinced that the uncharted territory of the human mind was the next frontier to explore, and that it contained possibilities we had hardly begun to imagine. Within two years of his expedition, Edgar Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973.

 

Today, Dr. Mitchell serves on the board of directors of the institute. He continues to be active at institute events, including lectures and conferences. He is the author of The Way of the Explorer.

"Religion may talk of life that goes on after physicality, and it's a nice notion, but it goes against what we currently know of how consciousness forms and is maintained. As far as we know, once the brain is gone, so is the person."

 

We (scientists, neuro-scientists...) simply have no idea how consciousness is formed. In the words of Professor Richard Dawkins when replying to a question about the subject in which he would most like to see advancement: "...Consciousness, which I think is immensely difficult, and I think it's difficult to even formulate the question, and I don't know what the answer is."

 

If we do not know how it is even formed we simply cannot allow ourselves the freedom to say that it is an emergent feature of the brain. Personally speaking I have very strong theoretical reasons for postulating that it is NOT derived from features of the material brain, but is in fact something completely separate and is only 'fed' by data neurons etc. This theoretical reasoning is then backed up by other strong objective evidence (frm rigorous scientific tests) which allows for only one of two possibilities: that individual consciousness survives death, or that some universal cosmic record (of people's lives) is somewhere/somehow maintained and can under certain circumstances be accessed. I know which one I think is more likely!

 

Seebee

Carl,

I think my opening post of Immortal Souls fits in nicely here so I have cut and pasted it below.

In Bishop Spong's essay on The Study of Life, Part 6 - Rethinking Basic Christian Concepts in the Light of Charles Darwin, he says in his closing paragraphs:

 

"So I had to begin my quest for life after death by going into the depths of the mystery of life itself. Just as we now know that life evolved out of lifeless matter, that consciousness emerged out of life and finally that self-conscious life has emerged out of mere consciousness, so perhaps the day is now arriving when we will experience the possibility of entering a universal consciousness that is beginning to emerge out of self-consciousness. We are thus part of the oneness of life, bound together by a common DNA and that oneness makes us part of God. It also suggests that we are linked to eternity since God is found at the depth of the human."

 

Teilhard de Chardin was a brilliant Jesuit thinker of the past century. (The following is quoted from Wikipedia)

 

"Teilhard studied what he called the rise of spirit, or evolution of consciousness, in the universe. He believed it to be observable and verifiable in a simple law he called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. This law simply states that there is an inherent compulsion in matter to arrange itself in more complex groupings, exhibiting higher levels of consciousness. The more complex the matter, the more conscious it is. Teilhard proposed that this is a better way to describe the evolution of life on earth, rather than Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest." The universe, he argued, strives towards higher consciousness, and does so by arranging itself into more complex structures.

 

However, Teilhard here proposed another level of consciousness, to which human beings belong, because of their cognitive ability; i.e. their ability to 'think', and to set things to purpose. Human beings, Teilhard argued, represent the layer of consciousness which has "folded back in upon itself", and has become self-conscious. Julian Huxley, Teilhard's scientific colleague, described it like this: "evolution is nothing but matter become conscious of itself." In Teilhard's own words: "...a Universe in process of psychic concentration is identical with a Universe that is acquiring a personality."

 

Life continues evolving toward the ultimate perfection of consciousness, a universal super consciousness. I think the universe is a living evolving organism and universal super consciousness is the ultimate measure of evolution.

 

Super universal consciousness is beyond self consciousness; it is other consciousness that is not only consciousness of self but of other's consciousness. It is pure empathy, the ability to experience and understand another's thoughts and emotions; to "get into their heads" so to speak.

 

In order for us to be self consciousness we need a functioning brain and a brain needs energy, oxygen supplied by our blood. When our heart stops pumping our brain dies and our self consciousness can no longer be supported by it.

 

If I am to think that I have a soul it is necessary that I understand how my soul is supported by my living body. I reasoned that my soul, mind, emotions, self consciousness and ego are all somehow a part of my mortal warm body. When my body goes dead and cold none of these are left within it. They either die with it or go on. I deduce that because my mind, emotions, self consciousness and ego die with my brain that my soul must be independent of them or it would also die with my body.

 

If my soul is independent of my body and my senses how can it possibly go somewhere like heaven or hell where it will continue on in eternity in suffering or bliss and why should I care?

 

What would be the purpose of a soul that is independent of a body?

 

What is the human spirit; is it the soul?

 

Is humanity a single organism with many physically separated parts that shares a common spirit, consciousness or soul?

 

If I have a soul and if it is a part of my consciousness and must be supported by a living brain how does my soul go on after my brain dies if that soul is unique to me and I no longer have consciousness?

 

The answer I've come up with is by no means complete. It comes from reading about paranormal psychic studies of near death experiences, out of body experiences, psychokinetic activity, remote viewing and reincarnation.

 

I'm thinking now that perhaps, through particle entanglement and natural the law unique souls of individuals are all part of a common universal soul of self conscious humanity.

 

Unique souls of the deceased may draw their energy from a universal consciousness field supported by the emotional conscious energy of living humans. In effect these souls timeshare brain power. Our brains are active even during sleep and our brain's activity produces energy that can be measured by EEG. Are our dreams somehow part of a consciousness energy field? Are the people and events we experience in our dreams fragments of experiences of conscious souls sensed by our brains through particle entanglement while we aren't using them?

 

These are just some thoughts and questions.