The Cross

The Season of the Cross.

As terrorists were nailing Jesus to the Cross he looked down at them and said:

"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do"

Reflective even for us non-religious.

Thoughts on the Feast of The Resurrection

It is believed that the word Easter derives from a Saxon Goddess who, if I remember correctly, was the Goddess of Goddesses. The time of Easter was also a celebration of the Goddess of Fertility, which is pragmatic as we see nature being "reborn" in spring. The theme of nature "being born again" makes it also convenient to celebrate the "rebirth" of Christ during this time of year.

Three out of the four gospels show the Last Supper took place during the Passover Seder. Thus we calculate the date for Easter from the Jewish Passover.

Holidays in the Christian calendar, like most religious holidays, owe the majority of their characteristics to a perpetuation of customs that precede them, we usually label these pagan customs. For instance the rabbit and egg were used in pagan rituals and customs celebrating the Goddess of Fertility before Chrisitaniy became the official religon of Rome. These characteristics were adapted to the new celebration of Christ's rebirth. Additionally, again if I remembering correctly, most early Christians in the Roman Empire did not abandon their previous Gods when Christianity became the official relgion but added Christ to the list of Gods they worship.

The characteristics of these holidays are at worst corporate, at least entertainment and at best symbolic of a generally peaceful message. Regardless of the characteristics special time is taken each year to remember :


1. The world deserves our humility.


2. For us to be fulfilled nothing of this world deserves anything short of our compassion.

Observations

I think at times it's hard for people to see the lives of others moving in different or new directions but it's important for us to remember that other peoples lives and decisions don't have to be wrong for our lives and decisions to be right.

And So It Was Said...

...that on the Grand & Glorious Eighth & Extra Day God did indeed create Sour Mash Bourbon to Keep Me From Conquering the World

These Aren't My Words

Arguments are wonderful, and so are ideas. But ideas aren't life! They are excellent for guiding us in life. But they aren't life. Abstraction isn't life. Life is found in experience. It is like reading a wonderful menu. You can guide your lives by the menu, but the menu isn't the meal. And if you spend all your time with the menu, you're never going to eat anything. Sometimes it's even worse. There are people who are eating the menu. They are living off ideas, letting life slip away.

What are we to do to overcome this? Krishnamurti warns us, "The day we teach a child the name of a bird, the child stops seeing the bird." The child looks at that sprightly thing, full of mystery and surprise, and we teach it : it's a sparrow. This child now has an idea: sparrow. And later, whenever it sees a sparrow, it's going to say, "Well, you know, its a sparrow..." The same thing applies to the idea, let us suppose, of an American. Every time I see an American citizen go by I say, "American." And I miss out on the unique being that this individual is. Have you experienced seeing a child in wonder looking at this mysterious trembling vibrant thing that we call a sparrow? The idea, the word, can be an obstacle to seeing the sparrow. The word "American" can be an obstacle keeping me from really seeing the American in front of me. The word and idea "God" can be an obstacle to seeing "God."

It's Vonnegut, not God. Or is he?

I wish I believed in signs. After mentioning Vonnegut in my previous post regarding religion the Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star had a short article on the author. The article was about his books becoming available on audio, nothing astounding but the article began with Religion and Politics. I can't leave you without these quotes:

[Vonnegut] has such glorious rants, like the one about Veterans Day, which
he still reveres as Armistice Day.

On that day in 1918, “millions upon millions of human beings stopped
butchering one other,” he writes. “I have talked to old men who were on
battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that
the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who
can remember clearly when God spoke to mankind.”

Armistice Day, he says, is “sacred. Veterans Day is not.”

He carries on about the “evil nonsense” taught to U.S. schoolchildren —
such as that 1492 was the date North America was discovered, when “actually,
millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the
continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat
and rob and kill them.”

Brilliant

“I am today raising a flag of opposition to this alarmism about global warming and urging all believers to refuse to be duped by these ‘earthism’ worshippers,”--Jerry Falwell

Allow progressive religion?

I have not found modern atheist scholarship that discusses religious progressives. High time is given to religious moderates who choose not to engage their fundamental counterparts. Frankly, I haven't read a good rebuttal on behalf of religious moderates either.

I presume the argument against religious progressives is they are motivated by irrational thoughts that produce rational ends. So must, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "the means we use be as pure as the ends we seek."

I proposed in a post way back that perhaps an entirely rational world might be undesirable. Allow me to explain. I don't want my kids to read the first few pages of a Kurt Vonnegut novel and stop because the plot is completely irrational. I want them to appreciate the imagination and style used and take lessons offered (metaphorically) through characters. Vonnegut readers don't go around trying to invent Ice-9 or praying to Tralfamadorians. Likewise Christian progressives don't translate all scripture to life, only those which are reasonable (read Borg article from previous post).

Christian progressives hold irrational thoughts none of which translate into irrational actions. Would atheists argue as long as these irrational thoughts exist they hold the capacity to produce irrational actions? Would this put at risk products from which we cultivate our imagination?


*Edit: With regards to my Vonnegut reference. Even though Vonnegut is a secular humanist I wonder if he would be comfortable eradicating irrational thought which doesn't produce irrational behavior. He doesn't appear to hold contempt for Christian Socialists from America's past and also has admiration for lessons found in the Bible, particularly The Beatitudes. I would also imagine he finds writings from Dawkins and Harris a healthy much needed outlook in our public discussion.