flowperson

OK:

Before you get my results, I have a thing or two to say about tests and quizzes.

First I try to scrupulously avoid being categorized, statisticized, and labelled. I tend to believe this process is one of the downfalls of civilized societies since it inherently tends to homoginize us as a species, and suppresses our tendencies towards creativity and individuality through the use of the results by "authorities".

Second, it is virtually impossible to use these things to paint pictures of reality for us to use and contemplate since everyone's world view is so different and interesting. I especially found the questions on this one particularly archaic and stilted. Religious and spiritual beliefs are inner emotional reactions to materials presented for our evaluation. Other than brain scans, there is no realistic way to measure that. IMO, if you do not ask the "right" questions, you certainly will not get viable answers, or "garbage in, garbage out".

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern.

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern

89%

Classical Liberal

75%

Modern Liberal

64%

Roman Catholic

61%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

50%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

50%

Neo orthodox

43%

Reformed Evangelical

43%

Fundamentalist

7%

Well, at least the test realistically classified and labelled most of us as miscreant and rebellious members of a like group; and, since 2,ooo years ago the earliest Christians were classified as such by their supposed betters, I suppose that's all right by me.

flow....

Cynthia:

It has been some time since I read People of the Lie, about twenty five years or so. But I had just gone through a really horrible family breakup that pretty nearly destroyed me, until I read this book and discovered what was really going on around me. I read this book before The Road Less Travelled and recognized traits in supposed friends that operated to pull me into their realities and it was not a healthy thing for me and my wife, so that ended badly.

It did distort my opinion of some of my interactions with others afterwards, but that is the beauty of the book. He is so right on in describing how evil operates in the world through interpersonal relationships that are really gamesmanship in the striving to better one's neighbor and friend in material indulgence. I found that to be the really corrupting behavior pattern that dirtied everything in my life eventually.

The trying to tear down another's joy evoking activities in order to enhance one's own personal self image I found to be the key factor in the process. Turning one's life into episodes of suffering to provide schadenfreud pleasures for another's apparent self-gratification was prevalent in my experiences. Kind of like the animated movie, Monsters Inc. There are evil people in the world, and knowledge and experience can enable the recognition of patterns in others' behaviors that seem designed to pull us into an abyss where one's recognition patterns become so distorted by what's going on that we become twisted and misled in the extreme.

I agree, such knowledge makes life more difficult, but then those are the opening words of The Road Less Travelled. I have, over the years , retained much more in the way of living skills from The Road Less Travelled than from People of the Lie because life is lived more fully through openness and vulnerability than through judgement, fear, and loathing.

I also found that reading The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli was very informative regarding just what goes on in the manipulative behaviors of others, but if you feel threatened by the knowledge, just drop it.

flow....

AR:

By all means, People of the lie. The contrasts with the content in The Road Less Traveled will astound you and inform you no end.

flow....

Boy, you like to ask the hard questions don't you? 

 

I've been thinking about it, and I don't honestly know if I coud explain what an authentic Christian spirituality would look like. It's difficult, because I find I don't want to judge anybody's relationship with God. That comes out a bit relativistic, which I don't intend it to be.

 

I guess I'd say that authentic Christian faith is a faith (love for God) that changes the inner person and prompts them (from that love) to do things "greater than Christ."

 

I'm sure that could be re-worded a bit better, but after thinking for the past half hour, it's what I decided to finally write.

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AR:

You sure did some worthwhile thinking in just a half hour !!

I agree with your take on authentic Christian spirituality, with some small changes. I believe that the idea of collective action was the whole reason for Jesus' coming to earth to teach us important lessons for existing in a spiritually driven and loving manner. The whole point , though, gets tangled up on the collectivity part.

That's what churches really are, collective formations that may, through their concerted actions,"do things greater than Christ".

That's what all the confilct is about between and among Christian domains is these days. Each grouping believes that it has the " correct " way, but of course that is not the case and groups stray from the path He pointed out to us because of, misinterpretations of the Word, human frailties, and political and social pressures.

And besides, most of them are perpetually looking back at the past for clues from His teachings

which may indicate actions to be chosen, when in my opinion He was really talking to the ages about the future and what we must collectively do to get there.

So I would word your key sentence as follows; " ...Authentic Christian spirituality is a faith ( love for God ) that changes the inner person and prompts them to join with like minded people ( from that love ) to do things together 'greater than Christ'. "

Now, this is based on a viewpoint that "faith based upon love of God and each other" is sufficient to define the term "spirituality". My inclination is to believe that spirituality is a larger and more diverse category than the faith statement alone. But in a progressive and collective context, the statement adequately reflects what I believe we're all after here.

flow....

Perhaps we are only the first species to evolve into self-awareness, and others are going to follow us into it?

flow....

Carl:

I am so happy for you and your friend !!

flow....

I believe that you are right on the mark jerry.

Experience is the wellspring of belief AND faith. If you can run across others whose experiences resonate with yours, then the sharing of belief and faith is enhanced. One cannot experience anything without questioning aspects of the universe around them.

So keep on questioning everything, especially authority.

That's what Jesus did best, non-violently, even though He could look into the future and see the turmoil that His works would create. That's the only way that progress is made across the eons. History teaches us all that lesson.

flow....

This is particularly hard in some web-based discussions I've been involved with. In these, it is very common for people to look up the TCPC's site and after the first point become quite upset. Recently, this led to proclaiming of anyone associated wtih TCPC as "profane," "heretics," and "accursed of God." Part of me wants to write off the conversation, but part of me wants to remain hopeful that even in these extreme cases there are possibilities to create space for dialogue.

 

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I don't know whether a sincere dialogue of the type you seek is possible. I believe that anyone who can observe and understand what is going on in the world these days would eventually come to the conclusion that the world, especially in the United States is changing in an accelerated manner, and not for the better. Many people simply will not acknowledge these changes and prepare themselves accordingly. Our major belief systems simply are ceasing to have much meaning to the people, especially those who reject any meaningful changes in traditional social institutions. When weaving was mechanized in England in the late 18th and early 19th century, these sorts of people were called "Luddites".

After working for a long time in administration at a large research university in a capacity which required me to look into the future in many ways and ascertain what the new sciences and technologies were going to do to change the world, I did a lot of writing about my opinions regarding the levels of change that were likely, and which were already underway. This was in the 80's and 90's. I usually don't feign modesty, but if I were the sort of person who doted on telling others "I told you so " I certainly could have done it many times in the past fifteen years or so. The information's out there. Most people refuse to absorb and acknowledge it for what it is.

Nobody even tried to dialogue with me regarding my findings. They only wished to attack me personally, and they were quite successful in destroying everything I had going in my life except for my spiritual beliefs. A classical case of nearly killing the messenger. But I did not and do not take any of it personally. Creative people are here to do one thing, create meaningful things and then move on with their lives. I've done that.

Progressives look into the future and attempt to plow the ground for the planting of seeds that will grow into things that will benefit humankind in general in as many ways as possible. Reactionary people ALWAYS try to bury new viewpoints and put them where the sun will never shine on them. The current administration's many faceted assault on basic scientific research is a reflection of its primary directive of serving the political interests of such reactionary people, or should we refer to them as a contemporary version of the legendary Luddites.

I for one DO NOT believe that dialogue is likely, but that opinion is based on my personal experiences and what I have observed and learned about the passing scene. Maybe you can make it come to be. I wish you well.

I don't know. Maybe I've given up on some of my brothers and sisters who do not seem to care about humanity and the vicious world that they seem to be creating while we watch the process as daily entertainment. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm too cynical. Probably so, but I'm quite willing these days to sit back and let future chips fall where they may.

I have a favorite cartoon on my refrigerator. It shows two penguins facing each other. One of the penguins has a very large orange fish swallowing him from his head down to his waist. The Penguin who is not being swallowed by the fish is saying to the other, "Relax, God's in charge". That's good enough for me these days. In that spirit I'm with Aletheia's opinion on this one .

Sorry for the rant, But you're a psychologist so I figured that you could take it for what it is and see my side of things.

flow....

des

I'm not anti-Harry, I just find that I have other priorities for my time that are more important for me.

Thanks for the information. I thought that it might have something to do with the head wizard. The secrecy of the name thing is interesting though considering the ancient Hebrews' prohibition on the use of the name of G-d.

Again, thanks.

flow....

Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho !!! Boys and Girls.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and so am I.

Mrs. Claus had to buy another three yards of red velvet to stich into the middle of my suit so my tummy will still jiggle like a bowl full of jelly when I laugh. I think that all of those homemade cookies and glasses of milk that I have to delightfully consume each Christmas eve is doing it. But I do not plan to curb my enthusiasm or consumption of goodies on this one blessed night of the year.

Reindeer that can fly are getting harder and harder to find in the Arctic these days. I used to be able to count on my Swedish and Norwegian friends the Lapplanders to provide them when I ran short. But with global warming melting the permafrost up here, the flying deer are getting their feet stuck in the mud and fall on their noses when they try to pull free to run to get up enough speed to take off. Rudolph has to constantly clean the muck off of his nose these days in order for his beacon to light the way. But I digress.

Remember to be good boys and girls because you know that the NSA will be monitoring all of your communications of my behalf so I that can know who has been naughty and nice right up to the second that we take off. Timing is everything you know.

I really hate to leave people lumps of coal and empty coke bottles in their stockings if they misbehave and do mean things to others.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night !

S Claus....

In response to the question about postmodern spirituality or religion, I can add a take on it, but don't think it applies across the board. The essence of a postmodern spirituality to me centers on the acknowledgement of our limitations in knowing any objective or ulitmate truth about religious or spiritual truths.

 

In my understanding of postmodernism, epistemology is a key issue. I see the primary postmodern epistemology to be an epistemological pluralism which embraces multiple ways of knowing while being suspicious of over-reliance on any one way of knowing. So, for example, the Bible may be taken serious, but it cannot be the end all of knowing truth. Even if the Bible is believed to be an Ultimate Objective Truth, our interpretation of it never is -- even on what seems most evident. So to know, we need to rely on mulitiple ways of knowing.

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I would thoroughly agree with you to a point. I believe that the "multiple ways of knowing" path is possible for more of us these days because of our immersion in a technological environment in urban areas. But this has a limitation, as we all know, since there is such a thing as "too much information".

Trying to assimilate and integrate such stupendous amounts of information leads inexorably to individual and group confusion regarding just what to believe collectively. I believe that we're all undergoing just such a conundrum in the world today because of the intent and activities of our government over the past few years and the reportage surrounding that. And it is obvoius that we do not have an inkling of what the "truth" of it all is despite "factual and objective" reporting.

Science and technological advances are a little more reliable in their degree of truth content since these things must be replicable and testable to be utilized and built upon in the real world, but they are limited in temporal aspects. But the information itself, which leads to a state of knowing, is usually factual and objective, or at least it is purported to be in both of these situations .

Now when it comes to information regarding spiritual and religious beliefs and experiences I believe that we are in a different ballgame. This is subjective in its nature since the information is rooted in the emotional and mystical experiences of individuals and certain groups of individuals. That the Bible can be interpreted in about as many ways as there are individual philosophies of those reading and interpreting it should be self-evident.

But there are crossover happenings that are both recorded as objective fact and become known world-wide, and that also instill a set of subjective beliefs in those who access the information over time. For instance, there is no doubt that something miraculous and paranormal happened at Fatima in Portugal around the time of WWI, and to my knowledge the Vatican still has not told the world what the third prophecy told to the children was/is. Besides that, thousands of people saw the sun do weird things in the sky. What do we do with information like that in terms of defining just what we might come to know as truth?

My own opinion is that we are increasingly dealing with degrees of quantum uncertanties in events such as this, and in such situatuions "truth" depends upon what is observed. And we all see the world and its events so differently.

flow....

To any Harry Potter fans, being made in the image and likeness of "You know who" would not be a good thing. :-)

 

--des

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Never read a HarryPotter book, never plan to. Never watched a Harry Potter film, don't plan to. So I guess you could say that I made my statement in ignorance, but I'm not so sure I want to even know that much about Harry Potterology.

But as one who works with young people you must know about Potterology to function in your role as a teacher these days; so, please explain why the phrase "you know who" would cause a problem for Potterologists

flow.....

I have a BIG problem with saying that only humans have eternal significance. I just don't get that at all. Upon what can we base this anthropocentrism besides pure egocentricity and a wish?

Yeah, that had occured to me too. Humans do not have eternal significance to the exclusion of the rest of the cosmos. But I think we, along with whatever other sentient beings there may be, do have a certain special role and responsibility to the cosmos, by virtue of our capacities.

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Yes, we were made in the image and likeness of "you know who" and designated as vice-regents (stewards) of what was made on this third ball of rock from the sun. I'd say if G-d is watching us from a distance (I love that Bet Midler recording !) then sh/he is probably pretty disgusted with what we're turning the creation here into.

flow....

Hi ! I'm Flow !

Synchronicity would have to be considered to be a term from the modernist era since it was popularized by C.G. Jung. But then again one could argue that Jung was one of the post modernist pioneering fathers.

I prefer the term "harmonic convergence" since it is a musical sort of term and it describes the culmination of a process of coming together for a reason, like deadheads at a concert. Rockin' indeed !!

We always said that too much of anything was just enough, but then we were probably just a bunch of coneheads who were dedicated to consuming "mass quantities". But we did end up winning the golf championship at the country club !!

flow....

These days I tend to approach everyday as a new adventure, but then that's mostly due to using a philosophy of just taking "one day at a time" for about twenty years now. I guess you could call that maturity?

Anyway, I can't think of a more appropriate slogan to have on one's shirt when one is a happy and handsome young man. Thanks !!

flow....

A wonderful synopsis of the eras of enlightened thought, Fred. Have you begun teaching any of this to the kid yet between the piano lessons? Really a cute one !!!

But as an aside, do you think that Einstein's and Heisenberg's work on relativity and quantum uncertanties had much to do with the shift in the 20th century from the power-driven optomistic approach to a balanced, good-bad outlook in the post modern times ? I see a relationship there, but I don't know that anyone has ever specifically pointed that out.

Also, it is my belief that we are in a comparable shift in philosophical approaches to life from the post modern dualistic model to a more wholistic vision of the world's and universe's systems, both natural and human-made. This might also help explain, in addressing Beach's question, whether or not the world's religions' overall movement towards ecumenism the past thirty years or so is a complimentary effect. Again I think of Huston Smith's, The World's Religions, Vatican II, and Hans Kung's book, A Global Ethic, as landmarks.

Thoughts anyone?

flow....

AR & Beach

I believe a qualified yes. As Fred pointed out they believed in totemic spirits and made images of them, mostly of animal spirits, esp. in the NW, Canada and Alaska.

Mask wearing and costumes were also prevalent in order to represent spirit forms. They also perceived the Spirit in all things of nature, so the pantheism, such as it was, was integrated into a whole because of their collective perceptions of nature.

As I stated elsewhere, many tribes, much like the pre-tabernacle Hebrews, believed that the male spirit came from the sky, the Sky Father, and the feminine spirit came from the earth, the Earth Mother, and life was not created and renewed except through their union in body and spirit.

But it's very difficult to generalize representations of Native American beliefs due to the numbers and diversity if the tribal groups. For instance, there was a great native civilization in the center of the country called the Mississippian. It centered in S. illinois across the Mississippi river from St. Louis in an area called the American Bottoms near what is now Cahokia. It is a place and city whose roots extend back into the 2nd milenium b.c. Large plazas and mounds still exist there, reminiscent of the stone works left behind by the Mayas and Aztecs in Central American locations. Evidence suggests that they were proficient in growing crops, gathering natural foods, and of course hunting.

Evidence of their trade goods has been found as far away as Minnesota, Louisiana, and Florida. Their supreme totemic spirit seemed to be represented by copper masks with long noses worn by dignitaries of the tribes. Evidence of communal living in long house structures has been found, along with remains of stonehenge-like circles constructed with wooden posts, and earthen works circular trenches and mounds like the great medicine wheels in the western plains. They were also adept at building very large scale earthen works serpent forms which are prevalent in Ohio and Louisiana.

This field of Anthropology is rich and varied, and anyone studying it marvels at the ingenuity and spiritual content of the lives of these people over the centuries.

flow....

Hooray for Kierkegaard !!!! I wish he were alive to post on this board. Now that "would" be interesting and original. Not that you guys aren't.

Also Fred, I agree with what you said regarding the beliefs of our native and indigenous brothers and sisters. They saw the Great Spirit everywhere. In the clouds, in the rain, in the fire, in the rocks, in the springs, in the plants and trees, in the animals which carried the life force as they also did; but, as with most native belief systems, their systematic harmonization of the attributes of nature, which was composed and synthesized through their powers of observation, brought a coherence and wholeness to their view of the world around them, albeit not on a conscious level. That set of abilities has almost totally escaped most people today.

Bringing harmony and wholeness to any picture makes it comprehensible and understandable. Their abilty to harmonize the concepts of spiritual matters in the natural world around them was a great accomplishment over the millenia, and it took so little time for the colonizers to almost totally destroy these unique views of the world. How sad.

At least some are now getting a level of satisfaction by taking back a share the colonizer's assets in their gaming ventures. But it's probably scant compensation for what they lost as a people.

flow....

Despite what the rationalizations for the persecution of Galileo may be, the only reason that he was punished for his work was that he wrote his compendium of findings in Italian and not in the language of the church, Latin. It was this threat of providing novel scientific information to the masses in their everyday language that so thoroughly threatened the powerful status quo at the time.

Galileo, besides being a paramount theorist designed and tested experimental techniques to prove his theoretical suppositions. As such he is considered to be one of the founders of modern scientific practice; which, by the way, is an evolutional step forward in scientific progress based, in part, upon the ancient practices of alchemy. The Holy Father's apology for the church's role in Galileo's persecution some years ago should have put the entire matter to rest, but obviously it hasn't.

I agree that recursive discussions always lead to bickering which is divisive and unproductive, as I have stated elsewhere here. I am not inclined to further participate in such discussions.

flow....

On the other hand, however, I do understand the distaste, not just in UU, but in culture at large, with conceptions of gods as beings of intelligence and power that manipulate the cosmos

 

I too understand this distate. Honestly, I find that I can't really participate in discussions on other forums I visit because this view is so prevalent. It can be fun to bandy about theology, but ultimately it becomes moot because my foundation is so completely different than theirs.

 

However, I think it's profoundly sad that individuals (like the humanists that walked out of the meeting in Beach's story) can't look past God-language to try and understand (and find common ground with) what a person (like the Native American speaker) might really have been saying.

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I tend to look at this from the standpoint that the "beings of intelligence and power that manipulate the cosmos" are automatically eliminated from the running when it comes to determining and defining the "Great Spirit" that our native brothers and sisters are familiar with.

The former class of beings must be temporal in nature (ie, bound in and by time) whereas the spiritual presence that we are trying to grasp transcends all of this and is outside of temporal machinations and manipulations.

This is the great mystery. How can this great loving presence be outside of time and yet have such an intimate role in every one of our lives? This is the root conundrum out of which all creation myths have been composed since our beginnings.

flow....

A well thought-out and reasonable response, James. However the beginning of the arousal of European thought from its long and death-like sleep during the dark ages was really just a beginning. But it was an important movement towards the establishment in Europe of a scholarly class of individuals who could openly teach the knowledge handed down to them from their predecessors.

I guess what I am really aiming at is the establishment of secular learning institutions such as we have today, which really began in Italy and France around the tenth century. Your own admissiion is that the Carolingian rebirth was tied closely to the church which was very controlling as to the knowledge taught to the people and how it was to be used in society.

Whereas, as I pointed out previously, the Muslims held open classes in their institutions with less overt control over the subject matter and the use of taught information by the people, especially when it came to science and mathematics. I guess you could term it as secular teaching and learning in the muslim model, and mostly ecclesiastical teaching and learning in the European rebirth of the Carolingian period.

Keep in mind that the East contained the needed technical information regarding material sciences since alchemy had been practiced in India and China as far back as the third millenium b.c. There were complex and functioning observatories in the Indus River valley of India three thousand years ago long before the church sought to repress the novel ideas of Copernicus and Galileo. Engineering and knowledge of complex construction techniques were prevalent in Egypt, Sumer, China, and India, long before even Rome and Greece began their rise and began to use such knowledge.

It was simply the coincidence of the muslim culture being in the correct place at the correct time to pass along the great bulk of this technical information through their educational practices including apprenticeships. The European beginnings of educational revival prepared a fertile planting bed for the arrival of this sort of knowledge, which was largely transferred to the world through the muslim culture not long after the Carolingian arousal, probably through their influential presence in Spain.

So I believe that we are both somewhat correct in our assertions. However, since I am a firm believer that G-d is the author of history, I do not believe it has been an accident that we have all ended-up benefitting from this learning and sharing of useful knowledge over the ages.

flow....

Besides, on another thread here Fred is openly admitting to being looney. Well, I'll admit to that too.

You admit that I'm looney?

 

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In the vernacular of the beltway bandits, I believe we're both "parsing" the same phrase in different ways.

I intended to state that I also admit to being looney. In fact others have accused me of being so for about twice as many years as you have possesed this albatross. But, you know, like you I mostly do not care what others think, say, or write about me. I just keep on keeping on and hope things will turn out ok. So far , so good.

flow....

All of our brains work a little differently from each other. It would REALLY be a boring world if they worked all the same way, no?

And from what I've observed, most people here have brains that work excellently, yours especially. Besides, on another thread here Fred is openly admitting to being looney. Well, I'll admit to that too. I believe that's inevitable since it's my firm belief that life's mostly a joke, and it's a joke on us.

Keep laughing and smiling !!

flow....

People who have looked into the matter of identifying the person who stood as a model for lady liberty (which was a gift to the USA from France ) have not been able to name the person. However, it is said by those who investigated the matter that the model was probably an african woman.

Leave it to the French to keep things honest when it comes to identifying the "light bearer" eh?

As I mentioned elsewhere here the "Black Madonna" was an icon of the church in the south of France and elsewhere, and is still revered to this day in places such as Poland and Mexico.

Also Carl, it is interesting that you bring up the Book of Enoch. It is an interesting compendium describing the roots of and reasons for the "end times", much as is the OT Book of Daniel. It was mostly used in the Balkan and eastern European church in the early days, and is replete with descriptions of the activities of the " serpent watchers " that will not leave people alone, but must see, control. and reconcile every human activity to their uses.

When the roots of the word "armageddon" are traced in the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, one set of meanings traces to Chaldean concepts that describe beings that "crowd in" upon human activities and always cause conflict and devastation due to this tendency and the conflict that it naturally brings.

flow....

Aren't grandmas just the greatest kind of people? Almost forty years after my grandmother's death, I still remember her in many ways each day, even though I have the great blessing of still being able to interact with both of my parents each day.

flow....