Everyone,

I don't know about anyone else, but I totally get this, i.e. how one person can refer to himself or herself as a "believer" and the other as a "non-believer," but when you take a peek under the hood, it turns out both of them really mean the same thing, and believe (or don't believe) the same thing...or close to the same thing.

--Linda

Faithful Apostasy
by Daniel Silliman

If asked whether he’s a believer, Wes, a Christian pastor, won’t give a simple answer. He has struggled with his faith for years. He can’t say whether he believes or disbelieves in any easy way. Instead, he tries to explain something more subtle, closer to “both” and “neither” than “yes” or “no.”

“The difference between me and an atheist is basically this,” he says, “It’s not about the existence of God. It’s: do we believe that there is room for the use of the word ‘God’ in some context? … I think the word God can be used very expressively in some of my more meditative modes. I’ve thought of God as a kind of poetry that’s written by human beings.”

Wes—a pseudonym—is one of five men who participated in Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola’s recently released study, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers.” LaScola is a social worker and Dennett, a philosopher, is one of the original New Atheists (and the “Four Horsemen”), well-known for his vitriol against religion. Much of their report is subtle and moving. It allows five Protestant ministers to express their isolation and private wrestling with questions of belief, venturing careful and sometimes complicated explanations. Unfortunately, though, the authors don’t seem to be listening. Instead, they seem intent on catching religion red-handed by exposing hypocrisy at the top.

What these clergymen really have to offer is ultimately not the fact of whether they believe in God or not but, rather, the struggles of honesty, faith, and reason that are a part of so many people’s lives today. Yet Dennett and LaScola dismiss the nuance in what their subjects say, foisting a severely restrictive framework onto the ministers’ carefully thought-out positions. Even in the title, the study labels them “not believers,” though that doesn’t really describe them at all.

As one of the men says, “We are not ‘un-believers’ in our own minds.”

<snip>

Source: Killing the Buddha

Thanks for the lovely article.

According to a Wikipedia article (and one poster I've met), 'Killing the buddha' is a phrase from a man named 'Lin Chi' who advocated questioning all things, including the authority of his own tradition. Lin Chi is not the sole inventor of the idea, however. Here is a group of protestant pastors following the same practice as they've discovered for themselves, probably by studying their own roots. I think they need to explain their position from the authority of the tradition that they are in. I think they could, and I'd like to know what brought each of them to that position. They have been honest about their struggle with belief. They have been on a journey of discovery. I'd like to hear them state that their tradition demands that they question and doubt, why and how.

The version of "killing the Buddha" I'm familiar with is a (Zen?) saying that goes something like, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him"--meaning that having such seemingly religious visions is only a distraction from the goal of one's meditation practice, and it must be cut off.
--
Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen:
The version of "killing the Buddha" I'm familiar with is a (Zen?) saying that goes something like, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him"--meaning that having such seemingly religious visions is only a distraction from the goal of one's meditation practice, and it must be cut off.
--
Stephen

Stephen,

That's the way I've heard it and the way I understand it too. I haven't had a chance to explore very much of that website yet, but I really like what I've seen so far. Naturally I went straight to the section called "Kama Sutra," which is pretty much what you'd expect from the name. Good articles, though.

--Linda

quote:

I haven't had a chance to explore very much of that website yet...—Raksha

     I have. There are some bright lights, but mostly I find negativity and lamentation. Religious experiences should be joyous journeys into understanding, not occasions for displaying festered wounds.
     What we believe is unimportant; what we discover nourishes our souls.
Seán

quote:

I have. There are some bright lights, but mostly I find negativity and lamentation. Religious experiences should be joyous journeys into understanding, not occasions for displaying festered wounds.

I'd say this openly doubting community is relatively hopeful and progressive. You should live among the believing community for a while. They have the wounds that fester.

quote:

What we believe is unimportant; what we discover nourishes our souls.
Seán

True that.

quote:

What we believe is unimportant; what we discover nourishes our souls.

Sean,

Interesting!!! I'm going to have to think about that, but I suspect you're probably right. Is that an original quote or did you rip it off from someone?

--Linda

quote:

...or did you rip it off...?—Raksha

Linda,
     Such as it is, it is my own. I could never quote somebody else without a proper attribution. Truth is I have a knack for spouting aphorisms; unfortunately they are seldom cogent. That is a bear I have to cross.
Seán

A bear you have to cross? That sounds dangerous!

Henry,
     I struggled somewhat with my literary conscience because of the similarity to Tennyson's Crossing the Bar but decided to forego an attribution because the poet did not have a backwoods accent, nor was his context pertinent to mine. Did I do a bad thing?
Seán

quote:

Originally posted by Sean:
Henry,
     I struggled somewhat with my literary conscience because of the similarity to Tennyson's Crossing the Bar but decided to forego an attribution because the poet did not have a backwoods accent, nor was his context pertinent to mine. Did I do a bad thing?
Seán

Sean, probably not with "Crossing the Bar" but then there's "Crossing the Bering Strait"?

-- John G.

Sean,

Thanks for the link to "Crossing the Bar." It's been so many years since I read that poem I almost forgot it existed!

--Linda

Linda,
     My childhood home was once a stagecoach way-station and it was filled with books of the Victorian era, left there by travelers from exotic places like New Orleans and Boston. Tennyson I discovered at the mature age of ten; he was a big tan-colored book with microscopic print and he opened up a world for me that I could scarcely imagine. I was slightly older when I crossed the bar with him and I really suffered grief, although he said I shouldn't.
Seán

quote:

Sean, probably not with "Crossing the Bar" but then there's "Crossing the Bering Strait"?—Bluelamp

John,
     Those guys are polar bars and no one crosses them.
Seán