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Off Topic Spirituality

Discussion in 'Watford' started by Leo, Sep 23, 2016.

  1. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I am not going to try to defend any of the 3 Abrahamic religions again. They require not just loose faith but belief in a wide set of things about God, prophets etc and also have rules. Unless you obey those rules you cannot truly consider yourself in their club. For years after I realised there was not a church I could belong to I clung onto my general acceptance of the bible and who Christ was. I tried to interpret it myself and live by those rules. However that is stupid. If the bible was true it should be able to work and Christ spoke in favour of a church and not of hermit like belief. Ultimately I consider the bible to be confused, contradictory and in the way it inspires people to hatred of others just plain dangerous. The same can be said for the Talmud or Koran.
    As there is no evidence to back them up I have - for me alone - decided they are not my belief.
     
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  2. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    You are right Leo, that is one of my biggest problems with the Bible, as with other sacred texts. The idea that man is made in God's image (which in some way reoccurs in most religious texts). If that is so then man (and all other life) is subject to the cycle of birth, growth, decay, death and then possible reincarnation (or enlightenment) - and that is in God's own image ? If that is so then God is also subject to the same processes. If all of nature is evolving then is God not also evolving ? The idea that man is made in God's own image appears to me to be a product of the ego of the human intellect, and not to come from a divine source. You say that God is responsible for language - why? When a seed is produced, it is produced with potential - whether that potential evolves is another matter. When he created us (if he did) then he created us with the potential to become humans (all of the raw materials were there). How much of eg. the human brain remains unused ? We are not men, we have the potential to become so - as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said we are 'manning' ie. in the process of becoming men, in fact the present continuous is the only tense which adequately describes nature - nouns do not exist there.
     
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  3. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Your views and questions correspond fairly well with mine. I do not understand why God would make man in his own image. What does that even mean? That God is human shaped or that (as you query) god and man share things like birth and death. I have always taken it to mean just human shape as opposed to an animal shape. Without wanting to be irreverent or crude how then do the differences between the sexes come about? Is God one, the other or androgenous - no way of knowing. Fundamental Christians do not do "evolve" I read some horrific statistic a while back about what percentage of Americans are Creationists. If God created man in his own image - ie not evolved from apes then he gave us a voice box and the means to speak which is denied to most animals - language is just a development of that ability - turning grunts into words. I think you will find we are men. Perhaps we can get brainier or better physically and maybe even find dormant e.s.p powers but that is simply refinement.
    I wish there were someone on our forum who was an active Christian, Muslim etc who could explain better the things we are questioning - I feel it unfair that none of the three of us so far mostly involved are able to give a robust statement of for example the bible.
     
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  4. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    I must admit Leo that I have only actually read the meaty bits of it - those which were most relevant to someone with my political beliefs. It gives my anarcho communist etc. etc. ideas more weight if they have a historical basis rather than being born (as ideas) in the 19th Cent. A lot of the rest of the bible, eg. pages and pages of learning about who begat who - I can imagine that God watching this was very impatient, like the one in Monty Python drawing back the clouds and thundering 'get on with it'.
     
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  5. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I even read the Apocrypha (look it up :) )
    I was unfair earlier describing the bible as a fairy story. In fact I think most of it is actual historic fact as accurate as history can be preceding writing when it has to be handed down orally. Overlaid on this was morality often dressed in understandable tales. I suspect Moses did go up into the mountains and came down with 10 Commandments - perhaps how he got them was a bit made up. There probably was a great flood. The Israelites did flee slavery in Egypt etc etc. As for Jesus life - told in gospels written 70+ years after his death - they probably got a fair bit right about basic events - on top of that was placed what his followers believed about him. Son of God or not - even Jesus only said "that's what you say I am"; virgin birth? - nobody could know; rising from the dead - miracle and true or removed by supporters? The fact is that unless he was not just an ordinary man then the bible would be at best a book of morality with no more authority than any other. It is only because Christians over the centuries have believed in the special bits that Christianity exists today.
     
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  6. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Interestingly from a personal psychological therapeutic perspective Carl Roger talks about 'becoming a person' Maslow (I know not everyone's favourite) wrote about self-actualization, but later in his life he and others developed Transpersonal Psychology and were interested in transcendence and non-egoic development. Assagioli talked about it and more recently Ken Wilber has wirrten extensively on it to.

    It all maps out a non-religious spirituality but also can include people's religiosity
     
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  7. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    :) - when you say not everyone's .......... does the cap fit - oh yes. Seriously though it is just his hierarchy of needs that is rather seriously outdated. I know nothing about Transpersonal Psychology etc - can you sum it up (in 3 words :) ) What is religiosity?
     
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  8. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Transpersonal psychology.... the study of spiritual development

    from a book chapter of mine:

    "Transpersonal psychology grew from the collaboration of a group of primarily humanistic and existential psychological researchers and clinicians. They concluded that humanistic psychology (considered the ‘third force’ in psychology to distinguish it from psychoanalysis and behaviourism) had not addressed states of consciousness outside ordinary everyday experience. These include:


    · peak experiences of beauty, awe, wonder, ecstasy

    · creativity which emerges from self-actualised individuals

    · altered states of consciousness occurring particularly in Eastern spiritual practices such as meditation and yoga

    · the ‘doors of perception’ opened by psychedelic substances such as LSD, mescaline and peyote

    · indigenous and tribal cultures, such Native American and Aboriginal, where human beings live in close connection to nature and feel intrinsically part of the process of life. "

    ....
    More recently I would add in
    - personal spirituality


    religiosity is spirituality that is explicitly attached to religion.
     
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  9. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Interesting - thanks
     
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  10. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    Spirituality I understand as being any beliefs which are based on anything beyond the 5 senses. If I do not cut down my hawthorn bushes and leave a gap between 2 bushes to allow the 'good spirits' into my garden, and plant rosemary to keep the witches away. If I avoid certain old woods at night because there is a 'spooky' feeling there then this can be to do with spirituality - or it could be found holding hands trying to 'contact' the dead (or contact the living in Luton). Religiosity has more to do with the outward practices associated with worship of some kind of creator - which also stems from spiritual beliefs but is normally part of a whole system of interrelated belief. Is devil worship a religion ?
     
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  11. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    A religion tends to be subject to a number of people agreeing certain things so I suppose devil worship could fall into that category - as could native American beliefs
     
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  12. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Here are some quotes on religion by specialists in the study of:



    Wulff (1997) “ a satisfactory definition (of religion) has deluded scholars to this day.” {!!!!}

    Dresser (1929) “ religion, like poetry and most other living things, cannot be defined. But some characteristic marks may be given” (p. 441)

    Smith (1963) “ the noun religion.. (is) not only unnecessary but inadequate to any genuine understanding.

    English & English “ a system of attitudes, practices, rites, ceremonies and beliefs by means of which individuals or a community put themselves in relation to God or to a supernatural world, and often to each other, and.. derive a set of values by which to judge events in the natural world.”

    Loewenthal (1995) the major religious traditions have a set of common features:
    • The existence of a non-material(spiritual) reality
    • Purpose of life is to increase harmony in the world by doing good and avoiding evil
    • The source of existence (God) is also the source of moral guidance
    • Social organisation for the communication of the above
    and Spirituality:

    "The root of the term spirituality, is considered to have come from the Latin spirare, to breathe, and is associated with a person’s personal sense of their own essence and their relationship to it and their everyday lives. It is an essentially individual and unique point of reference. A personal spirituality is not specifically associated with an organized religion; it can only be defined by the individual (Koenig, 2008).

    It is quite possible to have a personal spirituality and have no belief in any higher power or life after death. For some people, there is a sense of inner spirit, a source of inspiration and strength with no religious meaning. We propose spirituality to have some or all the following components:

    · A sense of something greater than the individual self or ego.
    · A felt sense
    · Values or belief system congruent to the individual
    · The living core of being of the individual
    · A sense of meaning"

    ___

    It was a very interesting and enjoyable subject to teach at Univ as everyone has a perspective and a personal meaning. Also rewarding as, although church attendance has declined, individuals all grapple with the great questions of life death and meaning....
     
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  13. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I am pleased to learn that religion has no easy definition - we all probably have a kind of idea of what it means but the scope for confusion with spirituality etc are immense - and that is before you get the zealots telling others they are not true members etc
     
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  14. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    There are often too very similar characteristics between cults and religions including what are called New Religious Movements (e.g Moonies, Scientologists etc)


    Two meanings of Cult
    1) Any religion whose doctrine deviates from the established norms
    e.g. Mormons and Christianity (Paloutzian , 1996)

    A Sect tends to be polar opposite of the Church

    2) Any religious group that are said to control and radically later the personalities of their members
    (Melton, 1986)

    Common characteristics of a cult:
    1. Charismatic Leader
    2. Regulation of daily activities
    3. Separation from normal society
    4. Control of Resources
    5. Control of Information
    (Paloutzian , 1996)

    Very similar to totalitarian states and dictatorships too...

    When I lived in a Hindu religious community in the 70s I realized I was in an organisation which operated just like a cult.
     
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  15. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Not sure Latter Day Saints would count as a Cult. More like the Scientologists - or even Islam. They have their own totally separate holy book. Basis may have been Christianity but is Christianity a Cult of Judaism?
     
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  16. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Look at this <yikes>

     
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  17. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    LDS may more accurately be called a Sect... is a branch of a religion with a practice or belief at odds with the mainstream
     
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  18. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I would think a cult tended to be like the Davidian cult in Waco Texas. A sect would be a sub- group of something bigger - not entirely distinct from them - shared basis but some divergence (heretical?). A religion would probably need to be fairly organised and defined system of belief where members all more or less agreed on common or shared beliefs. Beyond that spirituality would be much looser and less defined - where individuals may all share lots in common butnot want to define their beliefs and codify them into a religion.
    I bet everyone else has different perceptions of these
     
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  19. Hornet-Fez

    Hornet-Fez Well-Known Member

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    I think this illustrates the claim on this one:
     
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  20. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    woweee
     
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