The Morning Service

[poliphilo]

Sunday mornings we usually catch the end of the church service on Radio 4 while we make breakfast. The preacher (whoever it is) rarely makes any concession to the fact that he's working in an intimate medium, but soars and trembles and booms. It gets my goat.

Today the guy was rhapsodising about the vision of paradise at the end of the Book of Revelations. Yes, yes, yes- it's very beautiful, but the Book of Revelations is all about God and his angels killing people. It's the most bloody-minded, fanatical, genocidal book in the Bible- the first century equivalent of an Al Quaeda website. Taking the pretty bits out of context is- well- like discussing Hitler soley in terms of autobahns and his patronage of Albert Speer.

I've been reading stuff recently where Muslims are urged to face up to the violent passages in the Koran, to acknowledge (presumably with tears of penitence) that their religion isn't all pink cotton-candy. Fine- yes please- the sooner the better.

But the Koran isn't the only Holy Book to trip out on fantasies of murder.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Old Nobodaddy, as William Blake called him.)

I love it.

I've lost a lot over the years--my sense of the Creed, sentence after sentence, gone. And I know for certain that all my wondering and questions have led me only to realize that none of us knows anything, we can only intuit. Because there is silence.

I've gotten angry at that silence, because it seems so tantalizing, and for what?

But the silence may not be "to teach us lessons," but a simple result of our being incapable in our present form to comprehend.

Kate and I were talking about Jasper, how good he is (a dog saint, I suppose) and then she said she had heard that "animals have group souls only" and so they won't go to Heaven.

"Who knows that?" I said. "Somebody just thought that up!"

"Heaven wouldn't be the same without Jasper," she said, and I had this sudden startled thought about our concept of heaven in the first place--people and dogs walking around.

We don't know anything. It's scary how little we know after all these years of thinking about it.

I find myself drawn to the mystics, because they get a sense of things, but I am repelled by the rule-makers and the pontificators who offer us nonsensical frameworks ("group souls for dogs") as the Truth.

One can, I guess, only get a glimpse of Heaven peripherally, and it's just a glimpse, and maybe not Heaven at all.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

But it is still too beautiful...I hope if I ever get there my cats will be there!

What kind of faith cannot recover from a moment of doubt?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

What kind of faith cannot recover from a moment of doubt?

That's not faith, is it? It's a house of cards. Pull out one and it's over.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Perfectly put. My Father (a vicar) believes that faith cannot survive without doubt, they are compliments to each other and strenghen.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've stopped being angry. I've settled for patience.

I reckon the human race is still at a very primitive stage in its development. Our civilisation can be measured in thousands of years- and that's nothing. I think we have millions of years of evolution ahead of us.

And perhaps at some stage in the future we- or whatever evolves from us- will be clever enough to work it all out.

I'm not bothered about heaven. I don't want heaven. I want to UNDERSTAND.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I agree with you 98%.

I do want heaven. I want to take a tour.

I've got this problem with the heaven thing...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

I look around me. I see in nature that God(whateverthatis) recycles everything. My garden, for instance, is a study in birth, death, decay and rebirth. I cannot fathom why God would have this one exception, a great storage warehouse in the sky for souls... only human souls? What exactly is a soul, anyway? Anybody out there got a soul detector?

And anyone who's ever loved a pet knows they have a personality... and a soul. I don't need scripture or dogma to tell me this. When I awake feeling crummy, Madog, she nestles up beside me and licks my face. She knows how I feel when even my husband can't tell.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think heaven is a a permanent space or place. I think it's a state of mind. And in no way permanent. I agree with jubal51394 that everything is in a state of flux. And a good thing too. The idea of being in a place where nothing changes, where there can be no new discoveries etc etc is terrifying.

I'm too easily bored for the traditional heaven to have any charms for me.