MOW

Hello Flow: Fire dancing involves them stepping in fire and rubbing the fire on their bodies as well as eating the fire. I actually play conga drums and various percussions for this. Snake dancers do fire dancing and then will dance with a live snake around their shoulders. These performances were done on stages and in nightclubs. I played for these more when I was in my 30s and 40s but on occasion I still do. MOW

Hi des: Those were really good points about the word"literally". Just for the fun of it I did a little research about the "snake handlers". They take as their text Mark 16: 17-18 "And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons: they will speak in tonques ; they will pick up snakes in their hands and if they drink any deadly thing ,it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick ,and they will recover." (NRSV) Those churches were founded around 1909 and called Church of God with Signs Following. The picking up of snakes is voluntary . In addition to picking up snakes ,they also drink various poisons to test their faith. I wouldn't worry about taking those verses literally. Most scholars regard the verses after verse 8 in the 16th chapter of Mark to be forgeries and additions anyway. btw Flow if you're reading this ,I have played ,as a musician, behind snake dancers and fire eaters. MOW

Well that really isn't "literally" anyway that's metaphorically. Don't always assume that it is so obvious. It is said that the early church father Origen castrated himself, to fulfill the scripture about becoming a "eunuch for the lord ". We do know that there are Christians who carry around snakes in their services, because they believe the Bible tells them to do so. What people take literally,what they take symbolically, and what they simply ignore from the Bible seems a matter of personal preference sometimes. Some conservatives might march against a gay pride rally , but won't say a word about Wal -Mart having their stores open on the "Sabbath". Know one really seriously believes that we should forbid menstruating women from being seen in public or that we should free all prisoners fron jail and forgive all debts every seven years even though the certain books in the Bible say we should. The incident at the church where I played was hilarious. For all we know God simply caused that to happen so we would all have a good laugh that Sunday. Sydney Harris of the Chicago Sun Times used to complain about people taking religion so seriously, and not ever seeing God's divine sense of humour. Such things as the duckbilled platypus ,the frog, the gekko, the sloth ,and the kangaroo seem to be manifestations of this. MOW

I like your new Avatar too AR. Since we're sort of talking about the problem of taking passages of the Bible literally, I'd like to share something that happened at a church where I was organist. One of the members got up to read the Old Testament lesson for the day. When she got up to the microphone ,in the pulpit , she says in a loud voice"CIRCUMSIZE YOURSELVES TO THE LORD!!! ". Everybody kind of jumped . I thought to myself ,"you mean right now". I glanced over at my choir, and they were practically on the floor . After service I asked the pastor what scripture that was. She( it was a woman pastor by the way) said the wrong Old Testament lesson had been read . I looked it up and the passage the member had read by mistake was Jeremiah 4 verse 4. "Circumsize yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem." Anyone who wants to take that literally ,is welcome to try. MOW

This is quite moving ,des. The photographs are priceless. Perhaps this gives us some indication of what Jesus meant by saying "love your enemies". MOW

Here's another word in"Christianese" that is problematic . That word is"Lord". Lord ,is actually an English word that refers to the Baron of a feudal manor. This creates the image of Jesus as a benevolent dictator. In the synoptic gospels Jesus only refers to himself as "the son of man" which (I guess ) simply means " the human one". MOW

Another phrase that is problematic for many Christians is " Christ will come again". It is found primarily in the Apostle's creed. I generally interpret The Second Coming as the coming of enlightenment to the individual. I know that some Christians are hoping for a vengeful Christ, who is coming back to kick the behind, of those left behind. Does anybody else have an interpretation of the second coming? MOW

Nice post Fatherman! For my two cents I would like to say that it is sometimes deceptive to always bring up extreme examples like Hitler in discussing evil. Herod, Hitler , Stalin, Pol Pot etc are depicable figures, but they did not kill all those people by themselves. They were helped by the uncounted thousands of people who go along , or are just following orders , or who secretly admire these "strongmen and live vicareously through them. Humankind is one day going to have to deal with our secret attraction to thugs ,rogues ,and roughnecks . We always end up choosing Barabbas and Cesar. I've known a few conservative,saved , Christian women who've "fallen in love" with drug dealing thugs. They let them live in their houses or apartments, and drive their cars to do their "bidness". Sure we can point fingers at the drug dealer,but what about her. MOW

A couple of months ago ,there was an article in Alternet exploring the relationship between the "suburbanization" of America , and the growth of the conservative megachurches. It was not only the suburbs that the article talked about but the even further removed "exurbs", which I guess are suburbs of the suburbs. Being an urban dweller myself ,I don't know much about suburban mindsets. I don't like generalizations , but I was wondering if there is a connection. After all The Rapture would be the ultimate suburb . I'm sure some of you live in the suburbs. Any thoughts on this? MOW

Hi Flow I kind of see your point that maybe Jesus wrote something and it could have been suppressed. I could have said that as far as we know Jesus wrote nothing. However it is equally possible that Jesus just didn't trust the written word that much. One of Jesus' " hard sayings" was something like " you've heard it said you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultry. But I say if you look on a woman with lust you've commited adultry with her in your heart, and if you say "you fool" you 're destined for the hell fire." (I'm paraphrasing here since these words are pretty well known). These words usually anger liberals more than conservatives( although they can't keep these impossible moral codes either). Zen writer K Leong says that both sides miss the point. He believes that Jesus was deliberately being ridiculous and absurd in setting up these impossible moral codes, to show that enlightenment does not come from following codes. Humanity can usually get around rules like "do not kill" ,"do not steal". They just apply the Golden Rule of "whoever has the gold makes the rules " If a rich man steals a whole country he's just a great explorer or statesmen. If a poor man steals a belt buckle he'll be hung," says Chuang Tzu . Maybe Jesus felt that truth was something that was beyond words. MOW

Well Aletheia , "You know its hard out here for a progressive Christian..... " A clergywomen told me about a male member of her congregation . He had told her once that even though he loved his Lord and saviour, he was mad at Jesus. He couldn't understand why Jesus never wrote anything . Why he didn't tell people how he wanted his church set up , how it was supposed to be organized, what command structure was it supposed to have etc. He then asked her, if he was bad, for having those feelings. She assured him that he was entitled to his feelings and questions and that Jesus did not love him any less. I assume that Jesus could write. The Gospels record him reading from the scriptures in the temple, so I don't think he was illiterate . Yet , he chose not to write his teachings down in his own hand. Even an obscure person like Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)wrote something down , but we have to receive Jesus' teachings second hand as it were. MOW

I think there is also a denomination called Christian Church(Disciple of Christ) that are relatively liberal. MOW

Yeah , can't stay away long. In Haitian Voudon , Damballah is a snake god(loa), who lives in trees by streams of water. His wife is the goddess of the rainbow. Oddly enough in Haitian Voudun, Damballah , the snake god, is considered a"good" god, and father of all the loas. It seems the symbols of ,snake,trees, water, and rainbow , are found in many religions. MOW

" In case of Rapture, can I have your car ? " MOW

In comparing the Cynics to the early Jesus movement(Q), the Cynics seemed to be lone wolves (or dogs, where the term cynic comes from). The Jesus movement seemed more interested in forming communities , although both were countercultural . Jesus is also certainly a more attractive figure historically IMO then the Cynic ,Diogenes. MOW

Steppers class was fun, and I've started to get the hang of it. Next week we're going to be working on more involved moves. The class is two hours and and I did feel it the next morning. MOW

Well this week, I'm going to take my first steppers class. Stepping is a form of partner dancing that's popular here in Chicago. To finally learn to dance at age 54 will be a challenge. MOW

That's an excellent website MT!! It seems to me that the historical Jesus came to the realization ,that humanity is insane. In other words humanity keeps doing the same things over and over again,setting up the same kind of dominator societies and thinking we'll get a different result this time . The teachings from The Sermon on the Mount, the parables and the Q sections in Matthew and Luke seem "crazy" to most people, but Jesus was trying to point us in another direction. However we continue to choose "Barabbas" and" Caeser" . It's like the old joke "doc it hurts when I do this" and the doctor says"then don't do that". MOW

Good points Soma ,particularly the point about asking for objects. Suppose,in the same town, a farmer prays for rain for his crops,and a child prays for sunshine for a picnic . Obviously one of them is going to believe his prayer wasn't answered (sometimes we forget that God can say,"No") . Now multiply these requests by 6 billion souls ,and you can see the problem with praying for things . I think the model prayers were Jesus' (The Lord's Prayer), and St Francis'(" Lord make me an instrumennt of thy peace") . MOW

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments so far. Part of the reason I started this thread is that I'm going through some health issues in regards to my eyes. After choir rehearsal recently ,one of my choir members came up to me, and said she was praying for me. I simply thanked her, and I think that is enough. Sighting the results of a recent scientific study on prayer to her, would have been rude and disrespectful of her. Plus two Christians saying to each other " I'm praying for you", is a much more natural setting than in a lab experiment anyway. I guess I'm feeling kind of " Fortean" recently( Charles Fort was an early 19th century writer who cataloqued natural anomalies that science has not been able to explain). With respect David ,I think you took my statement" Don't put God to the test". out of context . This was part of Jesus' reply to Satan in the temptation story. Satan had made the ridiculous suggestion that Jesus jump off a tower to proove that a scripture was true. Jesus zen like response that by not jumping off the tower, he would be safe also. Granted people have fallen from great heights and survived (some I 've heard have even walked away), but that doesn't mean I should jump out of an airplane to see if I would survive too. Putting God to the test for me means, i.e. spending your rent money on lottery tickets and praying that God will let you win. Leaving your car unlocked ,with the motor running and seeing if God will keep it from being stolen. MOW

I'm sure some of you have heard about the recent study of heart patients, and the effect of prayer on their healing. The study concluded that prayer had no significant effect on the patients, and some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for actually got worse. Although I am a liberal Christian, I take issue with the use of the scientific method in this type of phenomena(spiritual healing and protection). A couple of years ago ,I was involved in a automobile accident. A man driving behind me had a seizure and rammed into the back of my car at a high rate of speed. I spun out and hit a rail , and my car was totaled. However, I walked away without so much as a scratch . My Christian friends ,both Liberal and Conservative concluded that I was protected by the hand of God. The problem with trying to "proove" that that was true( by the scientific method), would mean that I would have to get back in my car, and get hit , over, and over , and over again. If every time I escaped without a scratch ,that would proove that God would protect me in a traffic accident. This seems to come close to Satan's temptation of Jesus(" jump off this high tower and see if God's angels will save you" ) We shouldn't put God to the test. We should respect natural law,and be grateful for anomalies when they happen. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this subject. MOW

I haven't read "Who wrote the New Testament", but I did read "The Lost Gospel of Q" by B Mack. I have gained more respect for Burton Mack as I have gotten older. I try to read something from the Q Gospel every week( I don't always suceed). In regards to the Cynics, the best known of them is Diogenes of Sinope. One funny anecdote about him is this one. One day Diogenes was in the house of a rich man, and was told not to spit on the floor. So Diogenes spit in the man's face instead. I don't know if that is true or myth, but it gives some insight into some of the Cynic attitude . Jesus never did anything that brusque . However some of his dealings with Pharisees, Saducees ,and lawyers come close. His " sons of vipers" tirade in the book of Matthew (Matthew chapter 23) is another example. MOW

Good post! It is sometimes difficult for some contemporary Christians to imagine a time when the "New Testament" did not exist. Some seem to think that the Bible dropped magically out of the sky, and that the early Christians were walking around with Bibles that were mass produced. MOW

In a recent USA Today article, it was reported that people, on the left, tend to live alone. If they are partnered they tend have just one ,or no children . People on the right tend to have more children , according to the article. This is particularly true in America and in Europe. I don't think it's as true in Latin America. I don't have the technical expertise to link the article, but I believe it's in today's ( 3/14/06 )USA Today. The article goes on to discuss the consequences of this rightward shift in both America and Europe. Even if children of conservative parents rebel , they have no one their on age to discuss their ideas with: because children of progressives were never born . Do liberals need to have more children? MOW

Good point Cynthia. I think some people are uncomfortable with someone touching their naked feet ,so the UMC offers this option. As Mr Costanza told Elaine in Seinfeld ,"no one is touching my feet . I think I have a foot odor problem." On a more serious note, I believe Jesus was unique in this. No other world teacher washed his disciples feet ,as far as I know ( you can correct me if I am wrong). MOW