BS: Freethinking synchronicity

Subject: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Penny S.
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 04:43 AM

It doesn't belong in the YEC thread, or the Dawkins thread, though it spins off from the latter.

This morning Rabbi Blue on the Today programme on BBC R4 Rabbi Blue spoke about a Cabbalist interpretation our creation, as being (I need to listen again and it isn't up yet) in order to bring that part of God which He spent in the creation back to Him.

I've recently come across a ninth century scholar, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who held that Augustine's doctrine of God predestining everyone to either Heaven or Hell was wrong, God being of one nature, good, and therefore only capable of predestining souls to rejoin with Himself. The Irishman is not in totally good odour with the church, though he had been engaged to counteract Pelagius.

Both of these teachings (and I want to discover if the Irishman had been in contact with Cabbala - seems a bit early - in his continental travels) seem, by contrast with so much religion, to be inclusive, rather than drawing walls around which put those we don't like outside, beyond the Pale.

And then, this morning Start the Week, again BBC R4,
Faith and Doubt goes into the same territory, with ex-bishop Richard Holloway telling his own account of a journey to Christian agnosticism, away from the dependence on rules. (He appears with Karen Armstrong - confusion between faith and belief, Jonathan Safran Foer - writing a new Haggadah, and Helen Edmundson - author of a play about a nun, sister Juana, who had problems with a Catholic archbishop in colonial South America.) This will also repay relistening, and broadcast that there are more open forms of living belief in the spiritual.

Thjere are lots of us out there, and we need to make more noise. This from a Quaker. (We used to have a small meeting in a room next to a Fellowship who had a loud worship band, and a lot of glossolalia. It is hard to make silence heard.)

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 05:42 AM

Read Chittick's book on Sufism for their take the fall of Adam for a similar piece of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 05:58 AM

there are more open forms of living belief in the spiritual.

True spirituality is as much part of our subjective humanity as our sexuality, auditory systems, and capacity to feel love and pain: none of which are too well served by religion - or even Radio 4 if it comes to that, whose select hierachy is oft a tad remote from the more pressing concerns of real life. There will, for each and every one of us, and all too soon I fear, come a time for silence. In the meantime - be it Buddhists, Quakers, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Pagans, Anglicans, Gnostics, Cathars, Folkies, Taosts, 2012 New Agers or Happy Clappy Glossolalists - have fun by all means, but as long as we have to call ourselves something then I can't help but feel we're missing the point of what we really are. To be human is truth enough; the common cause of every single one of us, yet unique to us all.

Maybe it's that very uniqueness (the defining core of our spirituality) that blows our minds and has us running to an orthodoxy, however Free Thinking that orthodoxy claims to be? Only as Individuals can we think freely, for ourselves; but once we join The Club, hoping for answers to questions which just get in the way of a greater communion of simply being, then I reckon we've blown it. Times in ones life - times of real darkness - one has felt the need, but you know you're back on track when you can recognise it for the horse-chocolate it most surely is.

With every breath we take we are communing with the universe; with every breath we exhale we are giving thanks for being able to do so. If that exhaled breath just happens to be vibrating our vocal chords in joyful blasphemy, then so much the better really.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 06:20 AM

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis (author of Report to Greco, Zorba the Greek etc.), Crete.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 11:28 AM

I'm re-posting here a response to Penny's question on the Dawkins thread, simple because it seems pertinent to the topic.

""Certainly Penny, it is possible to be a free thinker, a humanist, and believe in a deity.

That is what free will is all about, the art of using your brain to decide which bits are of use in being a good human being, and which are simply agenda driven misquotes and misinterpretations by other men exercising their free will in an attempt to deprive you of yours.

Those with insufficient self confidence or self esteem fall victim to the controlling traps of dogma and doctrine which are the opiates with which their critical faculties are numbed to insensibility, the antithesis of free will.""

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 11:35 AM

I fear the religious who would seek to enslave me with their free thinking. I was part of a Folk Club once that was taken over by a bunch of Friends - got a bit weird after that. Became an extension of their little gang - as the rest of us weren't a gang at all, we just got together to sing so we wouldn't have to talk to each other. The occasional religious nutter is easily accomodated (most folk clubs have one) and I tend to indulge their passions. One chap was having a serious crisis of the faith until I told him about the Noah's Ark drogue stones. And another, many moons ago, complained how the pop charts were full of meaningless nonesense, citing the latest Boney M hit as an example. Of course he had no idea they were singing a Psalm, and when I showed him the relevant passage in his Bible he was made up and sang it at every available opportunity thereafter. I invariably warm to quirky outsiders, just the organised gangs I live in dread of. The individual is very often at odds with the world for best & worst of reasons; the gang, on the other hand, would have you burned at the stake if given half a chance.

Hell only exists in the hearts of believers; if there is no hell (which I can assure you there most certainly isn't) then what need of we of God or religion?

Someone posted this earlier on Facebook, worth a look:

Nobel prize physicist Steven Weinberg on how putting God ahead of humanity can be a terrible thing

Jonathan Miller's reaction says it all.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 11:43 AM

When one is a free thinker (I believe that I am) It is then that I realized the existence of God and the beauty of his creation. That is why I keep saying there is such a huge difference between religion and faith. Free will is what makes it all happen for me

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 05:17 PM

"It is then that I *realized* the existence of God ..."

(My **) ...Not a good word, as it implies finality, absolutes and dogma.

A few years ago, that judge in Alabama had the stone monument with the 10 commandments installed in city hall.... to, as he put it, *acknowledge* God. Another word which implies there is NO freedom to doubt. It is entirely possible to appreciate the wonders of Nature and the majesty of the Universe without making any absolute judgment about ultimate beginnings or any metaphysical creator. It is a personal thing, and freethinking gives everyone the same freedom.

True free will, even IF a god granted it, means one can doubt.
(My masters thesis in Philosophy was on how to deal with free will)

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 11:20 PM

Bill I did say "I" meaning my path, each has to find their own in life my friend. Its all free will and free thought. I only talk about me cause that is all I can talk about. Others have their own path that is right for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 10:49 AM

I quite agree, Dan... everyone DOES have to find their path, and the roadmap that shows the pleasures and the hazards of it. I have no doubt that you meant it as you just clarified...
I only refer to the terms used to explain/mention it to others. Language can be quite important when conveying a personal concept, and can easily give folks the wrong impression.




(why, look at poor Mitt Romney trying to say things, and digging himself a deeper hole)

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: gnu
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 12:52 PM

How can he get to be more of a hole?

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 02:01 PM

freethinker |ˈfrēˈθi ng kər|
noun
a person who rejects accepted opinions, esp. those concerning religious belief.

A FreeThinker never attempts to enslave anyone and accepts that is what people do
to themselves. Religion and FreeThought together is an oxymoron. it ain't real.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 02:12 PM

Steven Weinberg makes all the sense in the world! That sadistic bastard in the Old Testament has spawned generations of ugly people giving them permission to commit atrocities and bigotry, racism, auto-de-fes, witch burnings, needless and meaningless wars such as the Crusades, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Vietnam and now Iran.

And you talk about spirituality? That is vapid, empty, cold-blooded talk that negates the
value of life and humans. It makes the physical atrocities of mankind irrelevant.

You wanna' preach spirituality? That runs counter to scientific inquiry and is not life-affirming but physical denying.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 08:01 PM

""Religion and FreeThought together is an oxymoron. it ain't real.""

I for one never mentioned religion, and it doesn't appear in the thread title. The OP hasn't used the word "religion" at all in this thread. She has spoken of "faith" and " belief" only, which are by NO means the same thing.

While your comment above may have some considerable merit (and I believe it does), it is still true that there is no conflict (and it is not an oxymoron) to be a free thinker and believe in the existence of a deity.

Only if you translate that belief into a slavish following of someone else's ideas on the subject, do you lose the capacity to be a free thinker.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 29 Feb 12 - 04:39 AM

She has spoken of "faith" and " belief" only, which are by NO means the same thing.

If things are so obscure that they require belief and faith then the motives for that belief is just as religious as anything else - be it God, UFOs, Ley Lines, Ghosts, Folk Music, Pixies, Green Men, the Loch Ness Monster, the Glastonbury Zodiac, or Reincarnation. Each will have righteous / zealous adherents who are regarded as cranks by non-believers, just as believers regard non-believers with contempt and dismissal - muggles is the usual term these days (especially in Folk circles). To accept such things as Folklore - even the impluse to believe - is a start, I feel, to a more inclusive atheism.

Religion fascinates me in all sorts of ways, but I'm in no way religious. But then again, I've had a charmed life. Maybe things will change when Satan smites me with sore boils in some inverted-Job scenario in which God decides to put my Atheism to the test.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Silas
Date: 29 Feb 12 - 05:19 AM

Louis DeBerniers 'Book of Job' will give food for thought, well worth a read.

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: Penny S.
Date: 02 Mar 12 - 12:14 PM

To Suibhne Astray. I don't think this really belongs in the YEC thread.

I put in the OP about Johannes Scotus Eriugena (who presumably came from, and learned his trade in your neck of the woods.) He had the idea - which was subsequently trashed by the hierarchy - that the point was actually to bring all of creation back to God. Not out of hell, but to heaven. Or possibly Nirvana - he seemed to have picked up some ideas from further east than Ireland.

It's a thread which has never been entirely absent from Christianity - see Mother Julian of Norwich, for example. But it doesn't suit the suits (Ok, it isn't business, so the frocks) to let this be publicised much, so they merrily go on putting stumbling blocks in others ways.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Freethinking synchronicity
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Mar 12 - 02:16 PM

I find it hard to remember how I viewed things when I was a child. I've tried to recall my early reactions to the concept of religion. I went to C of E schools (school assembly prayers, RE lessons etc.), I was in the Boy Scouts (a quasi-religious movement), I went to Sunday school and our whole family went to evensong on a Sunday. But it all seemed to pass over my head like a sort of slow moving (oh, how slowly it moved sometimes!) cloud of vapour. I didn't understand it and didn't relate to it; it was just something that I humoured adults over (after all, when you're 12 adults know best ... don't they?). I suppose that I assumed that it would all make some sort of sense when I grew up ... well I've grown up now and it still doesn't make sense! And, if I'm honest, neither does 'spirituality' for that matter (wonderful opportunity to 'talk bollocks' though!).

As the years progressed some things began to make sense - Science Fiction, Folk Music, Chemistry, the principles of experimental design, Botany, environmental matters and concerns - and even, for a couple of years when I was studying for my Open University degree - Mathematics!

At the ripe old age of 63 I'm still in love with, and fascinated by, the world around me (and appalled at how many of my fellow humans are intent on destroying that world). If any of that makes me 'spiritual' ... well, if you like ... perhaps? But please let's not go on and on and on and on about it! I get impatient with people talking bollocks!