Burl

When Koheleth is speaking of "there is nothing new under the sun" he is speaking of his depression in trying to live without being centered on God. In the soliloquy, he describes failing to find happiness in hedonism, money and power. He then describes how he did find happiness after learning to live for God and defeated his previously depressive thought patterns. Indeed, everything is new in Christ. The idea that there is "nothing new" is Koheleth describing depression, not a statement of faith. As always, Scripture taken out of context is often nonsense. I've read very little of Spong, but what I have read seems based on the majesterial/hierarchical nature of the Anglican/Episcopal communion. Congregational churches don't have the same political issues. The biblical image is eternal life: linking our current existence seamlessly to our existence after death. Living in a Godly manner gives us prescribed charisms or gifts of the spirit that we can enjoy in this physical life.

I live near DisneyWorld. I find the experience of extreme fantasy combined with interminable lines and the owners insistence on slipping a vacuum hose into my wallet a bit like dropping acid in Soviet Berlin. Still, the need for pilgrimage and sacred spaces seems to be a basic human trait. Burning Man seems an obvious example.

Jordan's big question for me is if we Americans can maintain our longstanding and somewhat contradictory memes of "rugged individualism" and "cooperative association". He remarks on crony capitalsm, tribalism, and persecution of political heresy as evidenced by this last election cycle as proof of the dissipation and degradation of the individual into members of maladaptive cliques. Size of the groups may well play a part. Relating the first posting about pilgrimage and sacred spaces, there is something powerful in the physical gathering of like-minded people that is not found in solitary efforts. This is part of the theme of Progressive Christianity but I don't think they explicitly identify it.

Tariki, you missed the point. Jordan is conceptualizing social organization, not theology or philosophy. Birds don't know they have names, but they do know they belong to a group.

More sociology in religion. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's New Year's letter on belief in oneness, nothingness and the divine individual. http://jordanbpeterson.com/2016/12/new-years-letter/

Matthew 2:13-23. New International Version (NIV) The Escape to Egypt 13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: Out of Egypt I called my son. 16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. The Return to Nazareth 19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the childs life are dead. 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Happy New Year!

What are the social and spiritual reasons for sacred space and pilgrimage? http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/visiting-disney-world-is-the-modern-version-of-making-a-medieval-pilgrimage

This thread is getting long and confused. We are all individual, sentient beings. We have multiple connections, interactions, causal chains etc. We need each other, but we are not each other. Throwing our existence into a kumbaya pot of 'oneness' is anti-intellectual ######.

I did read it. Again. I do not discount your thoughts, but this essay is irrelevant to me and is also disconnected to my experience. Surely this is my loss, but there it is. I like critical thinking, careful attention to discerning subtle distinctions, and a connection to the body of saints (academic and religious) so that I can fit new perceptions into my own. We are unique individuals. Individual revelation is not easily transmitted.

1) Dogma is belief which must be supported by members without question. This has been questioned academically for decades.2) The knowledge was transmitted to me from dead, entirely seperate sentient beings through their writings and students. It conforms well to my individual experience.

Sociology. The functions of religion in society are a well established area of study.

Holy cow! I not only got Rom reading his bible but also quoting mysteries as supportive arguments! I bet some nun emails me a holy card!

The idea of oneness in Christianity is conceptual and based in dogma. In any case, a metaphor of mutual attachment or symbiosis are more accurate than a complete lack of individual distinction. All religion is primarily an attempt to artificially amalgamate individuals into a society. Individuality is never lost.

We live within God, but we are not God. Those scriptures affirm the seperateness of mankind and God.

We are called to be united in the sense of an increased presence. We never become one with God anymore than a fish becomes one with the ocean. The word for that is oblivion, or hell in Christian terms. The individual no longer exists on any level. We are co-creators but without the Creator we can create nothing. All we naturally have is a formless and undifferentiated sense of the divine per Aquinas. All this talk of eddies and oneness is simply a self-generated series of reflections in the mental echo chamber that creates loopy, useless thought leading to nothing driven by this natural drive to seek and know God.

Awareness of the environment is the definition of sentience. We are not patterns or eddies. Life is not an illusion. We are entirely seperate puddles and ponds, rivers and streams. Everyone is a unique individual.

This idea of non-uniqueness is your own version is of seeing Jesus in a tortilla. You are simply imposing a mental pattern on randomicity. We are individual sentient beings.

Supporting logic or evidence? How many fingers am I holding up?

An intimate international (albiet U.S. centered) forum of highly intelligent individuals. May be of interest to some.

A slightly poetic but silly and irrelevant analogy. Water is not a sentient being. This concept has no logical basis, and everything in the world argues against it.

Interdependence and "part of the summation" both honor seperateness. The concept of illusion vs reality honors seperateness. Our seperateness is obvious.

We are seperate, individual sentient beings and life is not an illusion. There are beaucoup connections and there are perceptions which differ from reality, but it is silly to simply dump everything into one giant pot of sophist's stew. Birth and death are sufficient evidence.

Praying everyone has a joyous holiday.