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Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:53 pm
by Res Ipsa
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:56 am
When I was a believer, I always had a hard time with the picking and choosing part. It drove me crazy. How do you know if your rule is the correct one? How do you know that your supposed spiritual feeling is from God or just from yourself or from somewhere else? It is impossible to know and so one has to rely on other's experience or history, and one's own experience. Then the concept of sin which presupposes one knows the path ...
I think the vast majority of people want to be good people, and they all have to figure out how good people behave. I don't think that merely identifying with a religious tradition changes that process in any important way. I share with MG many of the "rules" for how a good person behaves, even though he gets some of his from his God and I get mine from various sources. I think religious folks often don't understand this about non-believers. The process of figuring out how to be a moral person is not substantially different between believers and non-believers.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:08 pm
by Dr Exiled
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:53 pm
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:56 am
When I was a believer, I always had a hard time with the picking and choosing part. It drove me crazy. How do you know if your rule is the correct one? How do you know that your supposed spiritual feeling is from God or just from yourself or from somewhere else? It is impossible to know and so one has to rely on other's experience or history, and one's own experience. Then the concept of sin which presupposes one knows the path ...
I think the vast majority of people want to be good people, and they all have to figure out how good people behave. I don't think that merely identifying with a religious tradition changes that process in any important way. I share with MG many of the "rules" for how a good person behaves, even though he gets some of his from his God and I get mine from various sources. I think religious folks often don't understand this about non-believers. The process of figuring out how to be a moral person is not substantially different between believers and non-believers.
It would have been nice if the concept of sin and the possibility of offending an invisible god that really is the church power structure wasn't attached to it. It was hard enough working my way through my teens and young adulthood then the church foisted this unnecessary guilt complex on me and everyone it could. We all learn from observing or directly experiencing life's challenges and suffering the real life consequences should be enough, yet church guy has to add eternal consequences to whatever pecadillo there is. No thanks.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:22 pm
by Res Ipsa
Dr. E. I’m totally with you on that.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:19 am
by Philo Sofee
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:53 pm
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:56 am
When I was a believer, I always had a hard time with the picking and choosing part. It drove me crazy. How do you know if your rule is the correct one? How do you know that your supposed spiritual feeling is from God or just from yourself or from somewhere else? It is impossible to know and so one has to rely on other's experience or history, and one's own experience. Then the concept of sin which presupposes one knows the path ...
I think the vast majority of people want to be good people, and they all have to figure out how good people behave. I don't think that merely identifying with a religious tradition changes that process in any important way. I share with MG many of the "rules" for how a good person behaves, even though he gets some of his from his God and I get mine from various sources. I think religious folks often don't understand this about non-believers. The process of figuring out how to be a moral person is not substantially different between believers and non-believers.
This really strikes a note of accord within me, thank you for expressing it so well. It simply doesn't take any religion for people to love people, be good, and become a whole part of the organic whole that our universe is. Religion does not and never has had a monopoly on love, anymore than it does on truth. This is one of the most liberating and things I am grateful to have discovered in my own life. I can state uncategorically I am a far better person for coming to this without a religious command to be it than anytime in my previous 59 years of living. No fear or guilt from worrying about offending a deity or pleasing one either, just being a good person to all I come into contact with.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:23 am
by Philo Sofee
kairos wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:56 pm
Outstanding think piece Kerry! You obviously took a lot of time investigating and analyzing and then presenting a very coherent piece.
I am in no position to critique your work inasmuch as i do not have the intellectual tools nor experience-i hope others at Cassius will do so to help us all out with understanding.
But as nevermo i wanted to comment on the personal experience/ transformation you wrote about a number of times. As a RC i never had any kind
of transformational "spiritual' experience as i took part deeply in the liturgy of the Mass, novenas to saints, the sacraments ,eg Eucharist, Reconciliation , Confirmation , Matrimony etc. Only outside of my organized religion and experience and when listening to an evangelical Bible based
'exhorter/preacher' did clarity or so it seemed of a personal God who loved unfailingly and who was infinitely merciful did i have such an exprience- i call it my damascus road experience- an emotional surrendering, confessing ,asking for forgiveness and totally surrending to Jesus Christ did i experience a spiritual awakening that changed the path of my life journey 180 degrees; this led to my "all in for God" attitude and my professing
of Jesus as Lord and Savior ! This occurred in my 45th year and has continued 30 years to now. Thinking at early stages of this experience i had been wrong/deceived i began to tell others my story- i have encountered literally hundreds who have had similar experiences which leads me to believe that somehow i am connected to the Divine and those like me are connected to each other. Does it make it true- perhaps yes or perhaps no, but the experience did happen. i only know a few who have backslidden into a carnal lifestyle but do not discount their transformational experience as fiction.
i would like others to describe how they have experienced transformation that is to or from religion, to or from apostasy, to or from agnosticism or atheism and how that has changed their life's journey activities, objectives, end of life expectations etc!
thanx again kerry- your piece is a keeper!
k
Thank you Kairos. That makes it all the more enjoyable for me to know someone else enjoyed it and found it helpful. I will be writing more than I have lately now that I have a computer that has a good keyboard for me to type on.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:46 am
by Dr Moore
Kerry, thanks for sharing this. It's clear you put a lot of time, energy and soul into it.
It reminds me of something I read this year by Richard Rohr.
Rohr wrote:Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God. Much of our work feels like cosmetic piety, and often shame or fear-based at that, rather than any real transformation of the ego self, or what the Eastern churches rightly call "divinization."
-- Enneagram, a Christian Perspective
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:59 am
by Philo Sofee
Dr Moore wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:46 am
Kerry, thanks for sharing this. It's clear you put a lot of time, energy and soul into it.
It reminds me of something I read this year by Richard Rohr.
Rohr wrote:Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God. Much of our work feels like cosmetic piety, and often shame or fear-based at that, rather than any real transformation of the ego self, or what the Eastern churches rightly call "divinization."
-- Enneagram, a Christian Perspective
That is very well put, thanks for sharing this. Unfortunately, Religion(s) have become the roadblock, not the road to our higher reality we all long for. How ironic.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:01 am
by mentalgymnast
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:37 am
No one has authority over the person unless that person succumbs and gives in to an outside authority.
That’s what is referred to as a broken heart and contrite spirit.
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:37 am
Mormonism suppresses the individual, while the actual early archetype truth the ancients had did nothing of the sort.
Kerry, you remember Book of Mormon teachings in regards to the ‘natural man’. When you refer to your belief that the church/gospel “suppresses the individual”, are you referring to the impulses of the natural man or something else?
by the way, I forgive you for calling me a clown. Not ever having had anyone use that pejorative against me before it made me chuckle when I saw in my minds eye a picture of me in a clown outfit.
I’m getting a bit old for that!
Regards,
MG
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:06 am
by Philo Sofee
mentalgymnast wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:01 am
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:37 am
No one has authority over the person unless that person succumbs and gives in to an outside authority.
That’s what is referred to as a broken heart and contrite spirit.
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:37 am
Mormonism suppresses the individual, while the actual early archetype truth the ancients had did nothing of the sort.
Kerry, you remember Book of Mormon teachings in regards to the ‘natural man’. When you refer to your belief that the church/gospel “suppresses the individual”, are you referring to the impulses of the natural man or something else?
by the way, I forgive you for calling me a clown. Not ever having had anyone use that pejorative against me before it made me chuckle when I saw in my minds eye a picture of me in a clown outfit.
I’m getting a bit old for that!
Regards,
MG
No, it is not the Book of Mormon teaching of the natural man I am talking about at all. you didn't read the piece all that carefully if you actually thought this. I suspect you are just trying to deflect to some discussion of the LDS view so we can get the old Spirit to testify or something. I was actually quite clear in the essay what I meant.
Re: Revisioning the Sacred, the Problem of Mormonism
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:10 am
by mentalgymnast
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:06 am
mentalgymnast wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:01 am
That’s what is referred to as a broken heart and contrite spirit.
Kerry, you remember Book of Mormon teachings in regards to the ‘natural man’. When you refer to your belief that the church/gospel “suppresses the individual”, are you referring to the impulses of the natural man or something else?
by the way, I forgive you for calling me a clown. Not ever having had anyone use that pejorative against me before it made me chuckle when I saw in my minds eye a picture of me in a clown outfit.
I’m getting a bit old for that!
Regards,
MG
No, it is not the Book of Mormon teaching of the natural man I am talking about at all. you didn't read the piece all that carefully if you actually thought this. I suspect you are just trying to deflect to some discussion of the LDS view so we can get the old Spirit to testify or something. I was actually quite clear in the essay what I meant.
OK then. Thanks for your response.
Regards,
MG
I’m getting a bit old for that!