But this is just it: Is it toxic Christianity or nutcases who use Christianity?
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Almost :). I have post-graduate degrees in both Eng Lit and Linguistics. As far as deconstruction is concerned, I had great fun writing a paper, Deconstructing Maru (Bessie Head) - but that's about it. But I must be honest, the Bible in its entirety is a difficult read - incest, a vengeful OT God, drunk priests, Lot offering his virgin daughters... And I'm very suspicious of Moses's burning bush. And some of those old prophets sound just bat shit crazy. And yet, the whole thing hangs together so well, and lends itself to discourse analysis, and we tend to forget that those who wrote the Bible did not have the other books to refer to. Okay, I'll stop. :D
I like this. I have no comments, other than 'I like'.
Will take a look, thanks. :)
I am sorry to hear that gizmo. I am sorry you were seeking for truth and you cound't find. I believe you will find what you are seeking for. Kind hugs to you gizmo :hug:
As for religion and spiritual practice, this is what I believe and my thoughts:
To connect with Goddess/God, one doesn't need to be religious. They seriously don't ask for certain requirements. They only ask for honest heart and sincere prayers without any attachment in background. Pure heart is enough.
I myself have seen bad people who direct people in wrong direction. It's not any good. Something needs to be done.
I am sorry to say this, sometimes I find religions very scary. I know no religion teaches the bad. I respect every religion, but it's all those abusive/manipulative/sick minded people who makes me say no to religion. Ugh.
As for religion and spiritual practice, this is what I believe and my thoughts:
To connect with Goddess/God, one doesn't need to be religious. They seriously don't ask for certain requirements. They only ask for honest heart and sincere prayers without any attachment in background. Pure heart is enough.
I myself have seen bad people who direct people in wrong direction. It's not any good. Something needs to be done.
I am sorry to say this, sometimes I find religions very scary. I know no religion teaches the bad. I respect every religion, but it's all those abusive/manipulative/sick minded people who makes me say no to religion. Ugh.
Eleanor
Diamond Member
Two things come to mind (only scanned this last page - didn't read the whole thread.)
1) Spiritual Materialism - a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa a Buddhist teacher. The idea is that some people claim to be better than others because they are more "spiritual" or "enlightened" and then go on to act like that entitles them to treat other, "lesser" people badly. This is an ever present danger in all communities which are serious about spirituality. In its most extreme form spiritual materialism can be used to "justify" all other kinds of torture and abuse. Trungpa (I think that's right) wrote a book called "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" that I found very helpful in distinguishing between the posers and the real thing.
2) I'd say it's nut cases who use Christianity, and Judiasm, and Islam, and Buddhism, and... every other wisdom literature/tradition and spiritual practice. I can't remember who I stole this insight from, but it kind of helps me feel better when people in religious outfits do bad stuff. "Look, you would not be surprised to find a bunch of sick people in a hospital, right? So why are you surprised to find bad and confused people in a church (or equivalent.)?" And if the thing isn't run well, people who go to the hospital can get very much sicker than they were when they arrived. Same for religious groups. This isn't a good reason to stay away from hospitals. It is a VERY good reason to check out the hospital before you go there. The fact that the uber-institutions are in some denial about this, and so (except in a very few cases) unwilling or unable to do anything about preventing or curing abuse is just... depressing. Except in those cases where the uber-institutions are infected as well, in which case it is more than a little terrifying.
1) Spiritual Materialism - a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa a Buddhist teacher. The idea is that some people claim to be better than others because they are more "spiritual" or "enlightened" and then go on to act like that entitles them to treat other, "lesser" people badly. This is an ever present danger in all communities which are serious about spirituality. In its most extreme form spiritual materialism can be used to "justify" all other kinds of torture and abuse. Trungpa (I think that's right) wrote a book called "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" that I found very helpful in distinguishing between the posers and the real thing.
2) I'd say it's nut cases who use Christianity, and Judiasm, and Islam, and Buddhism, and... every other wisdom literature/tradition and spiritual practice. I can't remember who I stole this insight from, but it kind of helps me feel better when people in religious outfits do bad stuff. "Look, you would not be surprised to find a bunch of sick people in a hospital, right? So why are you surprised to find bad and confused people in a church (or equivalent.)?" And if the thing isn't run well, people who go to the hospital can get very much sicker than they were when they arrived. Same for religious groups. This isn't a good reason to stay away from hospitals. It is a VERY good reason to check out the hospital before you go there. The fact that the uber-institutions are in some denial about this, and so (except in a very few cases) unwilling or unable to do anything about preventing or curing abuse is just... depressing. Except in those cases where the uber-institutions are infected as well, in which case it is more than a little terrifying.
Eleanor
Diamond Member
One of my students a couple of years ago was apparently making his roommates miserable by being shiftless and inconsiderate, and justified himself by telling them they were "too attached" to things and that "eliminating attachments" was the primary virtue in Buddhism. I told one of the roommates (who was complaining to me) to remind the young man that the primary value of Buddhism is compassion. As it is of Chrisitianity. And Islam. And on and on. But apparently even if you get people to remind themselves of this five times a day, they lose track of it. :(:cry:[DOUBLEPOST=1401214492,1401214293][/DOUBLEPOST]From "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" by William James
"These paragraphs are the best thing I know in all Stevenson. "To miss the joy is to miss all." Indeed, it is. Yet we are but finite, and each one of us has some single specialized vocation of his own. And it seems as if energy in the service of its particular duties might be got only by hardening the heart toward everything unlike them. Our deadness toward all but one particular kind of joy would thus be the price we inevitably have to pay for being practical creatures. Only in some pitiful dreamer, some philosopher, poet, or romancer, or when the common practical man becomes a lover, does the hard externality give way, and a gleam of insight into the ejective world, as Clifford called it, the vast world of inner life beyond us, so different from that of outer seeming, illuminate our mind. Then the whole scheme of our customary values gets confounded, then our self is riven and its narrow interests fly to pieces, then a new centre and a new perspective must be found.
The change is well described by my colleague, Josiah Royce:—
"What, then, is our neighbor? Thou hast regarded his thought, his feeling, as somehow different from thine. Thou hast said, 'A pain in him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear.' He seems to thee a little less living than thou; his life is dim, it is cold, it is a pale fire beside thy own burning desire . . . So, dimly and by instinct hast thou lived with thy neighbor, and hast known him not, being blind. Thou hast made [of him] a thing, no Self at all. Have done with this illusion, and simply try to learn the truth. Pain is pain, joy is joy, everywhere, even as in thee. In all the songs of the forest birds; in all the cries of the wounded and dying, struggling in the captor's power; in the boundless sea where the myriads of water-creatures strive and die; amid all the countless hordes of savage men; in all sickness and sorrow; in all exultation and hope, everywhere, from the lowest to the noblest, the same conscious, burning, wilful life is found, endlessly manifold as the forms of the living creatures, unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these impulses that even now throb in thine own little selfish heart. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then turn away, and forget it as thou canst; but, if thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty." (2)
This higher vision of an inner significance in what, until then, we had realized only in the dead external way, often comes over a person suddenly; and, when it does so, it makes an epoch in his history. As Emerson says, there is a depth in those moments that constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences. The passion of love will shake one like an explosion, or some act will awaken a remorseful compunction that hangs like a cloud over all one's later day."
As good a description of spiritual awakening as I know.
"These paragraphs are the best thing I know in all Stevenson. "To miss the joy is to miss all." Indeed, it is. Yet we are but finite, and each one of us has some single specialized vocation of his own. And it seems as if energy in the service of its particular duties might be got only by hardening the heart toward everything unlike them. Our deadness toward all but one particular kind of joy would thus be the price we inevitably have to pay for being practical creatures. Only in some pitiful dreamer, some philosopher, poet, or romancer, or when the common practical man becomes a lover, does the hard externality give way, and a gleam of insight into the ejective world, as Clifford called it, the vast world of inner life beyond us, so different from that of outer seeming, illuminate our mind. Then the whole scheme of our customary values gets confounded, then our self is riven and its narrow interests fly to pieces, then a new centre and a new perspective must be found.
The change is well described by my colleague, Josiah Royce:—
"What, then, is our neighbor? Thou hast regarded his thought, his feeling, as somehow different from thine. Thou hast said, 'A pain in him is not like a pain in me, but something far easier to bear.' He seems to thee a little less living than thou; his life is dim, it is cold, it is a pale fire beside thy own burning desire . . . So, dimly and by instinct hast thou lived with thy neighbor, and hast known him not, being blind. Thou hast made [of him] a thing, no Self at all. Have done with this illusion, and simply try to learn the truth. Pain is pain, joy is joy, everywhere, even as in thee. In all the songs of the forest birds; in all the cries of the wounded and dying, struggling in the captor's power; in the boundless sea where the myriads of water-creatures strive and die; amid all the countless hordes of savage men; in all sickness and sorrow; in all exultation and hope, everywhere, from the lowest to the noblest, the same conscious, burning, wilful life is found, endlessly manifold as the forms of the living creatures, unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these impulses that even now throb in thine own little selfish heart. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then turn away, and forget it as thou canst; but, if thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty." (2)
This higher vision of an inner significance in what, until then, we had realized only in the dead external way, often comes over a person suddenly; and, when it does so, it makes an epoch in his history. As Emerson says, there is a depth in those moments that constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences. The passion of love will shake one like an explosion, or some act will awaken a remorseful compunction that hangs like a cloud over all one's later day."
As good a description of spiritual awakening as I know.
zaniara
Diamond Member
Good and interesting thread. You already know gizmo that I am so sorry you had to go through that, and that I too have been spiritually abused. And despite that right now am about to be a member of a church that seem to be a good, warm church. (And thus am a bit scared on/off, and careful.) Am too tired to say anything intelligent right now, but thank you gizmo for starting this thread. And @Eleanor THANK YOU for that post and GREAT parable!! (So good to see you!) I really needed it!
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Eleanor
Diamond Member
As a post script (now read the whole thread) I'm glad you got through the visit Gizmo!
And...the epic proportions of the moral wrongness and harm that is done... speechless.
On the "something in the Bible" topic: This one about sums it up for me:
Setting the scene: Jesus is talking to the folks who are getting in to heaven, and tells them that they are getting in because they took care of him when he was hungry, thirst, naked, sick, crippled, in prison, and alone... (remembering that all are children of God and so "my brethren." )
‘Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see thee hungering, and we nourished? or thirsting, and we gave to drink? 38and when did we see thee a stranger, and we received? or naked, and we put around? 39and when did we see thee infirm, or in prison, and we came unto thee? 40‘And the king answering, shall say to them, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] to one of these my brethren — the least — to me ye did [it].
The least. Who are the least? I guess the ones you think worst of. This acts as a check on my behavior. Although not always my thoughts...
And...the epic proportions of the moral wrongness and harm that is done... speechless.
On the "something in the Bible" topic: This one about sums it up for me:
Setting the scene: Jesus is talking to the folks who are getting in to heaven, and tells them that they are getting in because they took care of him when he was hungry, thirst, naked, sick, crippled, in prison, and alone... (remembering that all are children of God and so "my brethren." )
‘Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see thee hungering, and we nourished? or thirsting, and we gave to drink? 38and when did we see thee a stranger, and we received? or naked, and we put around? 39and when did we see thee infirm, or in prison, and we came unto thee? 40‘And the king answering, shall say to them, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] to one of these my brethren — the least — to me ye did [it].
The least. Who are the least? I guess the ones you think worst of. This acts as a check on my behavior. Although not always my thoughts...
Eleanor
Diamond Member
I always add a word to the Lord's Prayer... should. "Forgive us... as we should forgive..." I'm not really so comfortable with the other way. Seems like it locks me into a bad deal...
For some of us the "least" are more challenging than for others....
Hey, maybe this is why some people want to take this stuff literally! (Although I still don't get how the stuff about pearls and swine can be literal...) I guess I could get behind feeding and clothing and and meeting physical needs even of appalling monsters, at least in theory. And if that's where the bar was set, I could clear it. Write my little check and be done. But if I have to deal with them...or treat them like I'd like to be treated... not so much. The hurting other people thing... I have a hard time getting past that. I can do it (kind of) in the abstract... but in real life... I still want to shoot them.
Still, the worry does make it easier not to shoot them. But I'm not sure I'll stop wanting to. :whistling::shifty::cautious:
For some of us the "least" are more challenging than for others....
Hey, maybe this is why some people want to take this stuff literally! (Although I still don't get how the stuff about pearls and swine can be literal...) I guess I could get behind feeding and clothing and and meeting physical needs even of appalling monsters, at least in theory. And if that's where the bar was set, I could clear it. Write my little check and be done. But if I have to deal with them...or treat them like I'd like to be treated... not so much. The hurting other people thing... I have a hard time getting past that. I can do it (kind of) in the abstract... but in real life... I still want to shoot them.
Still, the worry does make it easier not to shoot them. But I'm not sure I'll stop wanting to. :whistling::shifty::cautious:
@Eleanor - I've liked your posts, and enjoy your erudition. There's a certain neurologist who sprang to mind for some reason as I read the touching Royce quotation and to whom I'd like to send it! (These institutional abusers come in all flavours. This one was a particularly slimy shade of Chemical Cosh Artist: 'I don't know anything but I'll try and foist my heavy duty drugs on you anyway to knock you for six so that you can't sue me, and woe betide you if you don't comply.' I didn't of course.)
Meanwhile, you amend the Lord's Prayer just at the point and for the same reasons as I do. That's the point at which I usually stop and have a good old chinwag with Himself: reminding us both that I'm fine with forgiving IF I'm asked, it being a two-way process and just like I'm asking him/her/it for forgiveness....
Meanwhile, you amend the Lord's Prayer just at the point and for the same reasons as I do. That's the point at which I usually stop and have a good old chinwag with Himself: reminding us both that I'm fine with forgiving IF I'm asked, it being a two-way process and just like I'm asking him/her/it for forgiveness....
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