Thank you to David for kind introduction on his site and for welcomes and comments from fellow bloggers! Summer solstice, and thankfully it's actually quite a nice day for it - presently at least.
Following on from yesterday's 'organised rain' - clouds with filofaxes etc, up for comment today, 'organised religion'. It's such a cliche, but quite a powerful language label that keeps people thinking of church (though I know it can apply to other faiths too) as something monolithic, cumbersome, and dare I say it, dead. New Testment metaphors for church are rather more organic and alive: the body of Christ, a tree - by extension from 'rooted and grounded in Him'. It's commonly heard, 'I'm a very spiritual person', 'my faith is a private thing' etc. So clearly spirituality is valued if people can connect with it in a personal, intimate way, and unfortunately that's not how many see church.
And 'religion'. Not a word viewed very positively either by the 'world' or the 'flock'. Interesting that there is at least one positive use of it in the Bible, 'religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless...' A couple of years ago I read a description of it's Latin meaning which cast it in a better light: 'religo' meaning to tie or bind'. Hmm, doesn't sound perhaps too promising, but the writer suggested that it is about realignment, getting a disjointed life back in line and in harmony with Reality, with the warp and woof of the universe. Woof? Well, you may think it's barking, but sounds pretty sensible to me.
It's not every day I'll be giving you this kind of word and phrase analysis, you may be happy to hear.
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2 comments:
Hi Bruce,
To me, when organised religion is mentioned, I think more of something far more dangerous to freedom than your clich̩. I think of holy wars (Huns vs Tims), intolerance (can you justify why homosexuality is wrong?) and controlling the thoughts of the adherents Look up Jesus camp for example (http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,183,Surviving-Jesus-Camp,Josh-Timonen .) Or indeed the lies spread about by the catholic church concerning condoms and AIDS Рthat is plain evil! I also think of creationist lies and propaganda (your church links to such a site) and an attempt to poison people against science and progress. Here is an example from the (un) Discovery Institute, whose aims include:
Governing Goals
To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and Hunan beings are created by God.
Five Year Goals
To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.
Twenty Year Goals
To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.
They appear to be prepared to do this by any mean necessary, including lying. This was exposed at the Dover County Intelligent Design trial. I strongly recommend this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg As someone who is genuinely interested in the truth, I find this disgusting.
As an exchristian, I can fully understand the difference between religion and personal faith. However, I would also point out that faith can also damage an individual – you will find many such testimonies on the net. The fact that it “works” for some is not evidence of god’s existence. It works for Muslims and new age tree huggers too. There are a lot of addicts at your church. How many who claim to have been healed had proper medical help? What about atheists who turn their lives around without God? If I saw an amputee grow a new leg after prayer, I would have to at least believe prayer works. So far I haven’t. Have you?
I feel Atheism has had many more positive effects on me than faith ever did (in fact, nothing positive came of being a Christian)
This was just going to be a quick hello, but I think I have written more than you, but it should stir up some response :-)
Billy Sands
PS Was the NT verse you refer to not originally written in Greek? That can change the original meaning. Psalm 22:16 is a good example of a Chinese whisper http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/pierce.html
Just to say, Billy is a friend believe it or not! Billy I informed you of my blog and invited you to comment and you certainly have! Personally I have no problem with debate; one of the reasons I've started a blog is to write in an interactive forum. However every one of the points you make will take some time to address - so I'll have to try and do that bit by bit over the next little while. Cheers.
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