Come On Down

[poliphilo]

A sci-fi fantasy I'm fond of- The Saga of the Exiles- predicates an alien intervention at the beginning of the 21st century (in fact, any time now.) The aliens- who are nice chaps- allow us the join their Federation, but on certain conditions. One of the conditions is that we abandon all but one of our religions.

And we do. Just like that.

How I wish. How I wish....

For some reason the religion we choose to retain is Roman Catholicism.

A certain leeway is allowed. People are permitted to flavour their Catholicism with Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever they used to adhere to. But I don't remember there being any Muslim-flavoured Catholics or Southern Baptist-flavoured Catholics.

It's a silly book.

I wonder how long it's actually going to take us to get beyond our religious differences.
How many thousands of years.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can forsee a time when we outgrow religion- at least as it's practised now. In the future we will all be Platonic philosopher-kings.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I have 7 sibs. We were all raised Catholic, and most of us went to Catholic school. We have among us now one nouveau Catholic, one traditional Catholic, one Quaker, one Mormon, and one Fundamentalist Christian. And we all get along, mostly by not talking about religion, or only talking about it to find commonalities.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Some of our biggest family arguments are about religious issues.

My brother thinks we need a Christ figure to forgive us our sins.

One of my sisters thinks we shouldn't need to be forgiven for being human--she says, "Do we get mad at a dog because he barks?"

She also thinks we're more like bees in a hive, and that our religion was constructed to keep us in the hive. If we get outside the hive, she says, we get unhappy until we're back in.

I have tried and failed to understand the concept of having an intermediary for our sins. If God is a personality, as we seem to think "He" is, then why would another personality be involved?

I realize I am being simplistic...

I don't think God has a personality. I mean, God's not human. With a beard.

Or a being, either...How can we possibly understand what created us? Or what created whatever created us?

The first creator. How can we?

I wonder often, Karen, about Jesus. IF he did the things that were said about him, how could he be a human being? Was he an alien?

IF he did those things.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I wonder often, Karen, about Jesus. IF he did the things that were said about him, how could he be a human being? Was he an alien?

IF he did those things.

I think he did some version of those things.

I don't think he was more alien to us than we are to each other.

I'm sorry your family fights about religion.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

We generally get along quite well.

Our WORST fights are about politics!

By fighting, I mean only that we get very incensed, pull out our best arguments, yell, get hacked.

But it's fun! And I always learn something.

I tend to agree with everyone--as soon an argument is put forward, I see the sense of it.

My mother refuses to listen to any of it.

I can't stay away. But I can only speak for myself. I don't do very well in arguments. I lose debates routinely, because I am easily convinced, a dangerous thing.

I would probably be easily brainwashed, because I want to believe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The thing is to be secure enough in your own belief not to be threatened by others believing differently.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

The thing is to be secure enough in your own belief not to be threatened by others believing differently.

I remember well a conversation I had with an older woman in our congregation whose son was dying.

I wanted to talk about Spong, that old reprobate who so stirred up the Church in the 90s with his book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.

(He now has a new book out, A New Christianity for a New World, in which he explains why the traditional understandings of God, Christ, the Church, and their rules and dogmas are wrong and dangerous. He spells out his contemporary vision of God, Jesus, prayer, worship, evil, the afterlife, and the Church as a community of love, equality, and truth.)

Anyway, the woman stopped me. She actually held up her hand like a policeman. She said, "I don't want to have my faith shaken right now, not with my son so ill. I don't want to think about this."

I felt terrible and apologized. But it occurred to me later that if her "faith" was so fragile, it was probably already too late.

We seem to have the idea of "faith" and "being saved" all rolled up together.

I'd forgotten all about Spong. He had a really bad name for awhile, people gasped at his blasphemies, and then he was forgotten.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I had some contact- fleeting- with Don Cupitt, a Cambridge don who caused a similar stir back in the 70s and 80s with a string of books propounding "Christian atheism". He was the most ferociously intelligent person I ever met. His intellect shone like a blade.

I raised his name in conversation with the jolly old bishop of Middleton and he said, "I don't read radical theology. I'm afraid it would shake my faith."

I understand his concern. Reading Cupitt shook my faith to the extent that I had to leave the church. But is faith worth hanging onto if it such a fragile thing?

Surely what we're all trying to do- in church and out of it- is get at the Truth.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I raised his name in conversation with the jolly old bishop of Middleton and he said, "I don't read radical theology. I'm afraid it would shake my faith."

How sad, to smother oneself in "faith" like a child's blankie, when there is so much to explore and wonder about!

I have never heard of Cupitt, but I found Spong fascinating. And there was no one to talk with about it. He was considered "evil."

The single most influential writer for me was Stephen Mitchell, a Buddhist. I happened to see his book, "The Gospel According to Jesus," in a bookstore, and I usually don't buy stuff in that section, but I kept thinking about it and kept thinking about it, and finally drove back to the store and bought it. It led me to Rumi, to Eckhart, and to thinking for myself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Cupitt fronted a TV series called Sea Of Faith, which caused quite a splash at the time. It documented how key 19th and 20th century figures- Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung et al- had contributed to the erosion of what Cupitt called the "realist" version of Christianity.

He was the inspiration for a (slightly hush-hush) organization for "unbelieving" clergymen. I spoke once (about Krishnamurti- then an enthusiasm of mine) at one of their "Sea of Faith" conferences.

These days Cupitt, like Spong, no longer makes the news. The theological debate (so far as I can see) has regressed and is all about whether God likes gays or not.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

In the future we will all be Platonic philosopher-kings.

Ah, the elegance of it. The peacefulness of it.

The very idea of killing another person would be repulsive to us. We would naturally want to help each other grow and prosper.