quote:

Some atheists study the Bible in depth, of course; but most generally are not interested in much more than the face value.

That's a generalization Tambien. Indeed most athiests were once devout Christians and it was their study of the Bible that actually turned them away.

But I can see that your starting point is a profound belief in the Bible and the message that you believe it conveys. You are not alone.

I lean towards Deism myself.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen:

quote:

Protestant ministers wear robes because judges wear robes

My understanding is that they are (derived from) academic robes--not the cheapo things everybody wears at high school graduation, of course, but the old-style robes of European academia that administrators and faculty still wear at American university graduations.
--
Stephen

Stephen,

I think you're right about that...thanks for pointing it out. Academic gowns, which date from the Renaissance, are most likely the origin of both judges' robes and the minister's pulpit gown.

--Linda

     Apparently Church Vestments derive from the ordinary costumes of ancient Greece and Rome and remained the European norm until the middle ages. Judicial Robes were the standard attire for everyone at the Royal Courts and have been retained till now by jurists. Their costumes have no religious connotation.
     Academic Robes have a tenuous religious connection insofar as all medieval scholars were clerics whose robes were the prescribed attire.
Seán

quote:

Originally posted by Sean:
     Apparently Church Vestments derive from the ordinary costumes of ancient Greece and Rome and remained the European norm until the middle ages. Judicial Robes were the standard attire for everyone at the Royal Courts and have been retained till now by jurists. Their costumes have no religious connotation.
     Academic Robes have a tenuous religious connection insofar as all medieval scholars were clerics whose robes were the prescribed attire.
Seán

Sean,

Thanks for the links. It's always good to have a refresher course, although I already have an utterly ridiculous amount of knowledge about Christian church vestments and all the other liturgical trappings involving fabric and thread. I mean that it's ridiculous considering my background, and the fact that I don't consider myself a Christian of any kind to this day. But as I made painfully clear in my last blog post, I had a serious grudge against the Jewish world (although NOT Judaism itself) that lasted for many years.

I can't believe that post has been sitting there for four months now with no follow-up post, when it should have had a few dozen of them! But to follow up just a little bit here and now, and to somehow get around to the point of how a nice Jewish girl came to collect orphrey braids (for chasubles) and filet crochet patterns for altar cloths...I have to state right upfront that I had/have a spiritual vocation.

That should be obvious to anyone who knows me at all, or who has read a few of my posts on this board and others. And a vocation sets up an inner imperative, a demand, a drive to express itself regardless of how many people you resent or how good your reasons are for resenting them. And regardless of how many roadblocks your particular religious culture or society as a whole puts in your way. It doesn't matter that at the time, the idea of a woman rabbi was literally un-thinkable even in the Reform movement. And yet my spiritual quest HAD to continue, because after all it was the driving force of my life. If one door was closed to me, it was inevitable that I would find another.

There were several possibilities that presented themselves after my family moved from Redondo Beach to the Fairfax area of Los Angeles (ironically a very Jewish neighborhood at the time), but the one that really took root was the Gnostic Society and the church associated with it, the Ecclesia Gnostica.

I'm glad there's a photograph of Bishop Stephan Hoeller at the altar right at the top of the page when you click on the link, because that picture alone is worth a few hundred words of explanation, if not a thousand words. As you see, the form of the Eucharist and most of the other sacraments is VERY Roman Catholic. The theology of course is very different, but lapsed Catholics usually feel quite comfortable with the service.

In the beginning, it was all very new and exotic and romantic to me, and it had something of the allure of the forbidden. I had very little--surprisingly little--hesitation about taking communion. The first time I attended a mass at the Liberal Catholic Church (affiliated with the Theosophical Society and with the Ecclesia Gnostica) I refrained from taking communion. The second time I didn't. At times I suffered intense guilt over allegedly betraying my Jewish roots, and at other times I felt very guilt at all. But I never allowed being Jewish to stop me from doing whatever I wanted or felt called to do.

Also--very, VERY important in this context!--being Jewish meant I had absolutely *NO* vested interest in any particular brand of Christianity. Now I had a MAJOR grudge against the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and still do. I have absolutely no intention of forgiving it EVER for its relentless persecution of my people. But that's another issue.

What I'm trying to say is that in the endless Catholic vs. Protestant wars that have been going on ever since Martin Luther pinned his list of grievances to the church door--well, I simply had no dog in that particular fight at all. So the issue of whether some particular custom or practice was "Romish" or "Papish" didn't mean anything to me, and it certainly didn't bother me. I understood where it might disturb other people coming from a different background, but I wasn't one of them.

WOW...I didn't know when I started this that I was going to get so long-winded! And that's only half the story. The other half (in a nutshell) is simply the fact that I've always been good at needlework and always loved it. So one thing followed naturally from the other.

More than you ever wanted to know, huh?

Wikipedia article: Ecclesia Gnostica

Love and Light,
Linda

Linda,
     If you look around the Ecclesia Gnostica page there is a link to videos of Bishop Hoeller giving homilies. I watched the one for Good Friday to get a measure of the man, but have gone no further. For me audio is slow and tedious; I'll download text versions of the other sermons.
     I only posted links related to the robes because prior comments about them were not supported by references. I intended no criticism of the comments.
Seán

quote:

Originally posted by Sean:
Linda,
     If you look around the Ecclesia Gnostica page there is a link to videos of Bishop Hoeller giving homilies. I watched the one for Good Friday to get a measure of the man, but have gone no further. For me audio is slow and tedious; I'll download text versions of the other sermons.
     I only posted links related to the robes because prior comments about them were not supported by references. I intended no criticism of the comments.
Seán

Sean,

When I wrote that long-winded rant (which I didn't know I was going to write until I did) I had only looked at the first link you posted, the one about the history of church vestments. I hadn't even looked at the ones on judicial robes and academic gowns, so I don't care if I was wrong in what I said. It was just a not-so-educated guess and I have no ego involvement in it.

What matters to me is the rest of the post and where I want to go with it, and how vitally important it is to me not to be misunderstood. That of course entails a certain responsibility on my part, to write in such a way that I won't be misunderstood. At the moment, I don't think I can do it and it's frustrating me no end.

I still can't watch video on my computer, but I'm glad you listened to one of Stephan's sermons, especially one he gave at a Good Friday service. The Gnostic Good Friday service was the first Ecclesia Gnostica service I ever attended many years ago, and I was hooked from that moment on. It has no counterpart in orthodox Christianity. It comes straight from one of the original source documents called the Acts of John, written in Greek around 130 C.E. I have my reference source right next to the computer, so this time I actually know what I'm talking about!

Did they show the round dance on the video? Unless you actually see it performed, or better yet participate in it, it's hard to convey how moving it is.

--Linda

Linda,
     The video I watched did not include the Round Dance of the Cross. I found a description of it in Wikipedia and can see why it would be included in the liturgy.
     Unlike other religions stemming from the Holy Land, Gnosticism seems to exalt our physical existence in addition to our spirituality. Am I right in saying that? Thus far I've found no reference to mortifications of the flesh, a practice that has always seemed perverse to me.
Seán

quote:

Unlike other religions stemming from the Holy Land, Gnosticism seems to exalt our physical existence in addition to our spirituality. Am I right in saying that? Thus far I've found no reference to mortifications of the flesh, a practice that has always seemed perverse to me.

Sean,


You have *NO* idea how completely hilarious it is to me that you'd get that impression! You have to be aware that for centuries, most of what was known about the Gnostics was from the hostile writings of the Church fathers, Irenaeus and Tertullian and others. Their standard accusation against the Gnostics was the complete oppsite. They were accused of a radical dualism, of positing an eternal hostility between flesh and spirit. It's true that there is no record of mortifications of the flesh, but there is plenty of documentary evidence for aceticism and celibacy.

OTOH there were also accusations of the exact opposite (licentiousness and immorality), but stemming from the same motivation, i.e. a basically negative valuation of the physical body and the physical world, and especially of their alleged creator the Demiurge.

I don't have time now to rehash the 30-year-old arguments in our group that came about as a result. But that doesn't mean I'm not remembering them! From what I've seen online googling the names of some of my old friends, some of those arguments are still raging full bore. The fact that many of the perps have Ph.D. after their names doesn't make these "discussions" any more civilized than they ever were.

Sorry to have taken this discussion off on such an irrelevant tangent, but I'm still glad you're interested in the subject.

--Linda

Linda,
     I've now surfed enough to see the Gnostics had no more liking for their bodies than did the vilest Christian saints. Too bad. I had hoped for better. Of course I am aware that the Fathers of the Church demonized the sect, but my awareness of the way the heretics were treated leaves me with small respect for their opinions.
     I think the controversy you've described among present-day Gnostics is a great deal more significant because it supports my developing conviction that no religion much surpasses its adherents. Our race is still too puerile to have a worthwhile God.
Seán

quote:

Sorry to have taken this discussion off on such an irrelevant tangent, but I'm still glad you're interested in the subject.

--Linda

No problem Linda!
Your stuff is always interesting, but I must admit, much goes way over my head.

quote:

I've now surfed enough to see the Gnostics had no more liking for their bodies than did the vilest Christian saints. Too bad. I had hoped for better.

Sean,

It isn't as cut-and-dried as all that. True in some cases, not so true in others. To a large extent it depends on which particular group you're talking about and when and where, etc. It isn't true at all in the case of modern Gnostics. However there are always a few academic purists who will argue that a belief system reflecting a world-hating dualism is the "true" or authentic Gnosticism. My fair and balanced opinion of these folks is that they are cynics who are always looking for reasons to feel superior to everyone else...but then that's me.

Even if you read fast and can absorb a lot of new material in a short time, which you obviously can, it's important not to jump to premature conclusions. It's more important in this area than in most others because after all, "history is written by the winners." And so is theology!

There has been a lot of new research in the 30+ years since the Nag Hammadi documents were translated, and a lot of it has consisted of unlearning "what you know that just ain't so." More than any other subject, Gnosticism was subjected to systematic revisionism and demonization by the orthodox Church, although much less so in the Eastern Orthodox branch than in the RCC. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that trying to learn about Gnosticism from the likes of Tertullian is like trying to learn about Judaism using the "Protocols" as your primary source text!

quote:

Our race is still too puerile to have a worthwhile God.

That's a much more Gnostic statement than you know!

--Linda

quote:

...it's important not to jump to premature conclusions.—Raksha

Linda,
     I don't agree with that. I always leap to conclusions so they can be refuted early by someone more knowledgeable than I. What is really important is not to cling to discredited positions to the detriment of new and better ones.
     In this special case I am repelled by the belief that the human spirit is a spark of goodness entrapped in a disgusting body. For me bodies are things of wondrous beauty, but the souls that they contain are occasionally degraded.
Seán

quote:

In this special case I am repelled by the belief that the human spirit is a spark of goodness entrapped in a disgusting body.

Sean,

You're not the only one! Coming from a Jewish background, what I never did understand is where Christianity and especially the RCC got off accusing the Gnostics of hating the world and the body. That always seemed like a bad case of the pot calling the kettle black to me. I never saw a dime's worth of difference between them.

The thing I love most about Gnosticism is the anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian focus. It's an outsider's religion. The one thing that has been consistent about me my entire life is that I've always been an outsider and I've always despised arbitrary authority of any kind, but especially spiritual authority.

--Linda

For the Paleochristian view I like, the problem with souls in this world/bodies is that they are Service to Self instead of Service to Others like they could have been in Eden. That said, this is a valid and faster path than the one in Eden.

-- John G.

quote:

Originally posted by Glenn:
John, you ask,

quote:

Come to think of it, do we have any atheist Senators or Congressmen?

I don't know if there any open atheists. The usual route people follow who are free thinkers, atheists, agnistics etc. that aspire to public office is to fake it. That is, they join some mainstream church and throw the church a few pesos every year. Once in a while show up, but not very often.

This kind of got lost as did the original question.
I think the need for church affiliation in our political system has been historically true and rarely discussed.

Any more comments?

quote:

That's a generalization Tambien.

Mmm. Ok, its a generalization.

quote:

Indeed most athiests were once devout Christians and it was their study of the Bible that actually turned them away.

Ok, but that still doesn't make them great Bible students. Some ex Christian atheist websites I've seen in the past have some lists of Bible contradictions that are wonky, poorly researched. I remember looking at some of them years ago and wondering if the authors even read the Bible at all, or if they were really just talking to themselves and other atheists. That sounds harsh, but if I look over at say, infidels.org, and look at the official list a lot of it is junk. Do the churches pay them to put this stuff up?

quote:

But I can see that your starting point is a profound belief in the Bible and the message that you believe it conveys. You are not alone.

I lean towards Deism myself. Smile

Not sure what Deism is. I'd say I have been affected by the messages (plural) in the OT, in Proverbs, in Psalms and elsewhere and by thinking about interpretations of them. I started by trying to understand the NT from an evangelical fundamentalist upbringing and then looked for resources to help me understand certain problems I encountered. God did not behave like I thought the Bible said, but I had not studied the Bible really at that point. I'm not sure if I can be called a theist by other theists, because 'Theist' defines something. That is something the Bible doesn't do but rather attempts to find 'Something' that cannot be directly explained, yet which people run across. I think the Bible thinks of the 'Deity' as you called it as something hard to observe, like the higgs boson or an electric field. When you are trying to make a positive difference in the world you encounter something, an experience that is difficult to share. The Bible is a path to connect with others that have had that same hard to explain encounter. It is especially a way to share it with your kids. My opinion (call me ignorant if you disagree) is that the religions grew up around this core, like coral on a reef or vines. People saw this religious development and wondered whether it might not be a good thing -- again my opinion. Now the religions are dominant, and what people wonder is how they came about. The Bible does not answer that question, because it was not designed to. So it gets used both by religions non religions. Am I still a theist?

quote:

Am I still a theist?

I don't think I ever called you a theist. Imo, a theist is one who wants a religious state, where one religion is the basis for for all law. Saying that you believe individuals should adhere to Biblical principals is not the same thing.

How do you feel about the Koran btw?

JohnT said:

quote:

I don't think I ever called you a theist. Imo, a theist is one who wants a religious state, where one religion is the basis for for all law. Saying that you believe individuals should adhere to Biblical principals is not the same thing.

How do you feel about the Koran btw?

I am not actually that familiar with Islam, but I am told it means 'Submission'. To me that is the equivalent of what I call in Christianity 'Burden of faith'. Example: a Christian believer has a certain amount of dissonance they will put up with until they decide not to believe. It is a cost$$, health, material, emotional or mental(like if their sanity is at risk etc). The amount really depends upon their internal process for why they believe and how robust the person is. Past that point of testing some choose unbelief but up until that point they will ignore many arguments and seeming challenges to their faith. What I'm calling Burden of Faith is what I think is required in Islam's 'Submission'. The Koran is direct about requiring a burden of faith. In that respect, I think it differs from the Bible which is a collection of different books that do not refer to themselves as a whole, nor do they directly say "We are perfect, believe everything herein."

Most Muslims (I'm told) actually cannot read the Koran, and for those that can it is a challenge to interpret what it says about right and wrong. I think for Muslims it is sort of like Grandma's Urn. Its always around, but its not very accessible. After all, how often does one need to check to make sure Grandma's still in her urn? Not very! It does still act as a center for their encounter with the 'Something'; but as a mantle piece. The main thing is to have grandma with them. So it seems the Koran they carry with them along with their particular understanding of its message as part of their burden of faith.

quote:

I don't think I ever called you a theist. Imo, a theist is one who wants a religious state, where one religion is the basis for for all law. Saying that you believe individuals should adhere to Biblical principals is not the same thing.

John,

I just noticed this, and I thought I should tell you right away that you're using the word theist incorrectly. You are confusing it with theocrat, but they aren't even close to the same thing!

A theist is a person who first of all believes in the reality or existence of God, and second of all (very important!) who believes that God has a personality somewhat analogous to a human personality, only on a much bigger scale. What kind of a personality exactly depends very much on the personality of the believer, since "God" is such a prime vehicle for projection. As for gender, most believers are smart enough (I hope!) to understand that God is beyond gender, but emotionally and in every other way they think of God as male. And very often it goes downhill from there, as you know very well.

A theist is not necessarily a theocrat, i.e. a person who believes that the religious laws of the Bible or the Koran or any other traditional holy book should be the basis for a nation's legal system. That's the definition you were using.

--Linda

JohnT,

quote:

I don't think I ever called you a theist. Imo, a theist is one who wants a religious state, where one religion is the basis for for all law. Saying that you believe individuals should adhere to Biblical principals is not the same thing.

I thought "theist" just meant somebody who believes that God exists. What a particular theist believes about the details ( Gods' goals, motives, methods, and perhaps limitations) can vary.

Henry

Raksha said:

quote:

A theist is a person who first of all believes in the reality or existence of God, and second of all (very important!) who believes that God has a personality somewhat analogous to a human personality, only on a much bigger scale.

I did not know that.

quote:

Originally posted by También:
Raksha said:

quote:

A theist is a person who first of all believes in the reality or existence of God, and second of all (very important!) who believes that God has a personality somewhat analogous to a human personality, only on a much bigger scale.

I did not know that.

Tambien and everyone,

The way it's usually expressed is that a theist believes in a personal God. At least that's what I think it means...anyone is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

More and more these days I've been hearing people describe themselves as "non-theists." That means they specifically reject the idea of a personal God, even though they believe the attributes of will and intelligence and purpose usually ascribed to God are inherent in the Universe. That comes pretty close to my own beliefs, athough I still prefer the term "pantheist."

--Linda

quote:

I am not actually that familiar with Islam, but I am told it means 'Submission'. [...] Past that point of testing some choose unbelief but up until that point they will ignore many arguments and seeming challenges to their faith. What I'm calling Burden of Faith is what I think is required in Islam's 'Submission'.

I think that's something of a 'meta' definition of Islam's "submission". My understanding (as a complete outsider but curious reader) is that "submission" is one literal translation of the name "Islam", as well as a summary of the nature of the religion. Both the individual believer and the society as a whole (laws, customs, etc.) are expected to submit to the will of God as elucidated in the Qur'an and the traditions. Such submission is intended as both the simple obedience due from a creature to its creator, and the path to follow for one's own and society's benefit; or to put it more earthily, the transcendent God who knows everything and could crush you like a bug has laid out the best way for you to live, and it's your place to accept it, through which you will find peace ('salaam', linguistically related to 'islam'). That's also why Islam is sometimes called "religion of peace". It's not because it's uniquely peaceful as such, but because it's in the name itself, and because it's asserted that the individual and the society would find peace by submitting entirely to God.
--
Stephen

Stephen, I hear what you're saying about Islam and submission and that my comment was ambiguous. Let me differentiate token public submission in Islam from burden of faith, which in Islam will include submission. I see deep personal belief as a type of submitting to a belief, so that is what I meant to express. Maybe 'Submission in Islam' was not the best way to describe it. I'd say submission is publicly part of religion and government of Islam, but burden of faith only applies to the believers. It is about the personal cost of belief, not just the cost of any religious adherence.

quote:

Originally posted by Henry J:
JohnT,

quote:

I don't think I ever called you a theist. Imo, a theist is one who wants a religious state, where one religion is the basis for for all law. Saying that you believe individuals should adhere to Biblical principals is not the same thing.

I thought "theist" just meant somebody who believes that God exists. What a particular theist believes about the details ( Gods' goals, motives, methods, and perhaps limitations) can vary.

Henry

Henry and Linda,
You are both right! I was thinking theocrat.
Which may or may not describe Tambien's general orientation.