minsocal

I will leave readers of the most recent controversy with this fact: From the Government of Uganda (March, 2009): UGANDA HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis The % of incidence of AIDS in Uganda attributable to MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) is ... ? 0.61% [Yes, you read it correctly, zero point six one percent! This number does not differentiate between gay men and bisexuals.] http://www.unaidsrstesa.org/files/u1/Uganda_MoT_Country_Synthesis_Report_7April09_0.pdf (see page 28 for the major modes of transmission)

If, as suggested previously, we take a look at Genesis the question is what (exactly) do we find? Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, (see the comma). Right from the start, this is a space-time based narrative. Before the "beginning", there was "something". If God is eternal, and outside of time, this is not God speaking, it is humans speaking. Genesis 1:2 (comma) the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. (now we have a period) I have yet to find a literalist who can explain the significance of "the deep" and "the waters" pre-existing Creation "in the beginning". Water is matter in a liquid state, so matter existed before "the beginning". Since this is before the Garden of Eden story, the literalist must explain how "the waters" and "the deep" differ from other "matter". I could go on ... and on ... verse by verse. For me, literalist accounts steal the true meaning of this "grand narrative". Ask me more ... I'll speak for my views knowing that I cannot "explain it all". That each and every one of you find God is all that counts, I care not how you do it.

I attend a UCC Church also ... The UCC is not perfect, but at least their focus is in the right place. And, some have an affiliation with TCPC and some not. Mine does.

I would like to start a conversation about Point 4 of the TCPC 8 Points. TCPC Point 4 states: "By calling ourselves Progressive, we mean that we are Christians who: Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope" In the study guide for Point 4 there is the following explanation: "Progressive Christians take a different approach. From our reading of the gospels, we have come to the conclusion that the followers of Jesus are to welcome all people without imposing on them the necessity of changing their attitudes, their culture, their understanding of the faith, or their sexual orientation. To take this position a step farther, we would also say that the established members of a church should always be alert to the possibility that they are the ones who must do the changing. They always must be ready to adapt themselves to the people they hope to welcome." First, I want to say that I support this viewpoint, especially with the explanation. However, on first look I wondered if anyone would take this an an endorsement of class differences, which I would be uncomfortable with. Am I being too analytical? On the other hand, the explanation does provide quite a challenge to us as we engage "others" and struggle with the problem of putting people into categories. Does this really mean that we should we be thinking along the line of placing each person into a category of one, and adapting to people and not to categories? Comments? minsocal

I think it is true that we project our own personalities onto God; a lot has been written about that ... and we do the same with other people. Some people are able to withdraw those projections and see God in a clearer light and some are able to do the same in their relationships with other people. The conclusion then is that neither God nor humans require that aspect of the ego we find so objectionable. If we take the human ego as a narrowing of our consciousness and assume that God's consciousness is full and complete, then God would have no ego whatsover. minsocal

One interpretation holds that Adam and Eve, being unaware of their physical differences were, psychologically speaking, one and the same being. The selection of Eve as the culprit is the imposition of later (male) translators who distorted the original meaning. To become conscious is to "fall" into the field of opposites and (then) become self-responsible individuals. minsocal

I remember Joseph Campbell talking about his encounter with a Japanese Zen master who said ... "we don't have a theology, we don't have an ideology ... we just dance". minsocal

Right. God is NOT contingent. God is necessary. However we ARE contingent. We are not necessary. Saying that God is contingent on himself, while a brain twister, is technically true. Otherwise you get the "who created God?" scenario that rationally has no answer. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanks Aletheia. I agree on all three points... it was the "brain twister" that got me. minsocal

Murray Bowen, a leader in the application of systems theory to family therapy, believes that we are currently in an extended period of social regression. He traces the beginning of this period to just after WW II. His prognosis is that it will be perhaps another 20 years before we switch into progressive mode again. I hope it doesn't take that long ... I'll be 77 before the change occurs! Archetypal alchemy is pretty hot right now in psychotherapy. One of my mentors in my Psy D program teaches it and uses it as his primary therpeutic technique. minsocal

Ahhhh ... I took my definition from The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy "contingent, neither impossible nor necessary; i.e., both possible and non-necessary ... Muddles about the relationship between this and other modal properties have abounded ever since Aristotle ...." Along with this definition, there is a extended modal square of opposition showing that in all cases 'contingent' does not mean 'dependent'. The only usage of the concept of 'contingent' that I am familiar with is this one. It's use in this manner maintains a clear distinction between 'necessity' and 'contingency'... "something that is contingent cannot be neccessary." minsocal

So many good ideas ... my favorite is: Ghandi - "Far more indispensable then food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment." C.G. Jung - "Natural life is the nourishing soil of the soul. Anyone who fails to go along with life remains suspended, stiff and rigid in midair ("The Soul and Death", as translated for The Collected Works, 1960)." minsocal

From Jung: "If we are to do justice to the essence of the thing we call spirit, we should really speak of a 'higher' consciousness rather than the unconscious." Life and spirit are two powers or necessities between which man is placed. Spirit gives meaning to his life, and the possibility of its greatest development. But life is essential to spirit, since it's truth is nothing if it cannot live ("Spirit and Life", 1926 Baynes translation)." "Natural life is the nourishing soil of the soul. Anyone who fails to go along with life remains suspended, stiff and rigid in midair ("The Soul and Death", as translated for The Collected Works, 1960)." For Jung, the Collective Unconscious is pretty much the seat of the Soul but adds that the Soul is mostly concerned with how to live (and die) and that the Soul cannot be approached by mere "rationalistic opinion." minsocal

I'm getting really confused! Contingent means dependent on something not yet certain, conditional. Liable to happen or not; uncertain; possible. Happening by chance ... possibly conditional on something uncertain. Help! What am I missing? minsocal

Welcome Hilary & pat ... Enjoy your journey with TCPC! My UCC church has been an affiliate for some time and I am considering becoming an individual affiliate. I remember well the first time I saw the 8 Points about three years ago and thinking "wow ... can this be true?" It felt like coming home. minsocal

Funny Tests: Intelligence Test Read the sentence below: FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF- IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. Now count the F`s in that sentence. Count them only once Answer: There are six F`s in the sentence. (I found four the first time) A person of average intelligence finds three of them. If you spotted four, you`re above average. If you got five, you can turn your nose at most anybody. If you caught six, you are a genius. There is no catch. Many people forget the "OF"`s. The human brain tends to see them as V`s and not F`s. minsocal

Agreed. I've posted this definition before: "Progressive Christianity From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Progressive Christianity has a long history in American politics. It focuses on the biblical injunctions that God's people live correctly, that they promote social justice and act to fight poverty, racism, and other forms of injustice. There are also some groups that take an inclusive approach to all life, human and non-human and place a positive value on the earth, as God's creation. Progressive Christians see themselves acting in the public sphere. A priority of justice and care for the down-trodden are present from before Christianity. These are carried on carrying through the early church, the monastic movement, the ministry of healing, the Catholic and Protestant churches, to the Progressive Movement in the 19th century United States of America and the Social Gospel. Since the 1900s progressive Christianity was influential in determining what constitutes the values by which a good society is run. It stressed fairness, justice, responsibility, and compassion, and condemns the forms of governance that wage unjust war, rely on corruption for continued power, deprive the poor of facilities, or exclude particular racial or sexual groups from fair participation in national liberties. Progressive Christianity was most influential in the US mainline churches. It has also been an important influence on student activism globally. Progressive Christians have been active in the ecumenical movement, for example the World Student Christian Federation and the World Council of Churches internationally, and at the national level through groups such as the National Council of Churches in the USA and Australian Student Christian Movement." I apologize for the repetition ... but this has meant a great deal to me in my lifetime and, in in the last three or four years it has again become a central focus of my life. minsocal

One of the definitions of tolerance speaks to the conscious refusal to negate "the other" while retaining the reciprocal right to speak out and not be negated by the actions of others. In other words, negation generally leads to more negation. Less often, respect will be reciprocated with respect. The difference between the two can be overcome, and this seems to be the challenge. minsocal

I haven't read Searle. Jung isn't necessarily as mystical as some think. He was still a psychoanalyst. Freud was quite concrete in his theory of the mind, having trained to be a neurologist. To Freud the unconscious was in the brain and while I don't know that he wrote about the collective unconsciousness, I would think he would see that as a biologically shared "background" much as evolutionary psychologists do. One can interpret Jung as deviating far from that, but I don't know that he did. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Jung made it very clear that his concept of the collective unconscious was based in the physical workings of the brain and acknowledged that the collective unconscious is a product of evolution. When Jung broke with psychoanalysis (and Freud) it was over the ethical implications of their different views of the unconscious. Freud's view of the unconscious evolved into a very pessimistic and deterministic one where "the unconscious" is the repository of repressed (personal) experiences. Jung believed that the collective unconscious is objective and not personal. Freud did not address the possibility of an objective and collective unconsious until after Jung entered into this area. Why is this an ethical problem? As Jung pointed out the last time he and Freud met in person, the biological variations expressed in unique individual human beings will be different from person to person, and it would be unethical to favor one over the other. Psychology, Jung said, "would have to wait for a theory that did justice" to all possible outcomes. Jung was also a close friend and collaborator with Wolfgang Pauli who is considered by many to be one of the founders of quantum theory. Jung and Pauli worked together on the theory of synchronicity or the "acausal connecting principle". What Pauli and Jung were hoping to show was that, at the quantum level, the phenomenon of "non-locality" could be used to show that "everything is connected" (in very simplistic terms). If consciousness is in some way related to quantum theory, and there is a non-local connection "with everything", then (in principle) Jung thought he might have "saved the soul" from destruction by scientific materialism. In fact, religious leaders in Jung's home country, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, awarded him a special recognition for having done just that. minsocal

Count me in. I love the theological/philosophical discussions, but sometimes they stop short of the ethical considerations and actions that they were intended to support. I sometimes wonder if we as a society are slowly losing our passion for justice? Or perhaps the the word "enthusiam" (en + theos) is more appropriate than passion? minsocal

My reading of the Old Testament leads me to conclude that the emergence of the "peaceful approaches to life" began in Old Testament times, primarily with the writings of the prophets. The historian Will Durant provides a reasonable argument for this hypothesis as does the psychologist Julian Jaynes (to mention only a few outside of the usual theological/historical debates). minsocal

Well said. In a prior post I mentioned the work of John Searle. What intigues me about his theory of consciousness is that it's stongest thesis is a defense of "the collective unconscious" which he calls the Background. He cites Nietzsche as one of the first to really comprehend the implications of the Background and Jung also refers to Nietzsche in his discussions of his concept of the Collective Unconscious. Searle's work parallels Jung in several other notable respects. Both take an antimaterialist stance (which really irritates many of Searle's peers), both tend to believe that the mind-body problem is probably an illusion, and both emphasize that the capacity for self-deception is one of the nagging problems of consciousness. While Searle is an avowed atheist, he recently wrote that he had to admit to a nearly universal "urge to spirituality" that he is at a loss to explain. Underlying all of this is a bit of irony. Physicists, when discussing the 'physical' have no problem switching from discussions of 'matter' to discussions of 'energy'. Now, what exactly is 'energy'? Like the mind, you can't see it and there is, as yet, no universal theory that can fully explain either. Ahhh ... the fun of it all. minsocal

The approach taken by Penrose is closest to "Appropriate physical action of the brain evokes awareness, but this physical action cannot even be properly simulated computationally." He endorses this view in The Shadows of the Mind (p. 15). At the moment, this is the only book of his that I have in my library and I don't know if he has "changed his mind". (Ok, it's a bad pun). minsocal

"Sir, What is the secret of your success?" "Two words" "And, Sir, what are they?" "Right decisions." "And how do you make right decisions?" "One word." "And, What is that?" "Experience." "And how do you get Experience?" "Two words" "And, Sir, what are they?" "Wrong decisions."

(The hot dog vendor prepares the hot dog and gives it to the monk. The monk pays him and asks for the change. The hot dog vendor says: "Change comes from within".)

A monk was driving in India when suddenly a dog crosses the road. The car hit and killed the dog. The monk looked around and seeing a temple, went to knock on the door. A monk opened the door. The first monk said: "I'm terribly sorry, but my karma ran over your dogma." minsocal