Any questions?
Or comments.
I have been posting comments in other blogs, in which I allude to other things that I don’t make clear. I am a working retiree with limited time and energy, and a slow writer, and I often don’t keep up with everything placed before me. This post is an open thread, for things I haven’t gotten to yet. We need not agree on a matter for you to comment. Just keep it agreeable.
Your conclusion is largely within my line of thinking, although elements I may take issue with are more interesting.
Because I identify as a thinker rather than as a writer there is less incentive to ‘create a market’ or validate existing bias to build a base. The attempt will be made to answer to your writing while also writing for a larger audience. (That may never exist) I do not mind having a very few people reading my material and probably deserve it given my attitude toward existing ways of looking at things.
I remember well listening to many sermons where the sensation was there of being spoken to directly in a deep way. I figured that others felt this also and made for a kind of magic. But later when I learned of cult-ish aspects to the church I realized that indeed the Lord works in mysterious ways. My hope is that you see that while I do not process things thru a religious lens, I still respect and will reference that mode of understanding to some degree. And I do love gospel and praise music and wholehearted expressions of faith, so I got that going for me.
I limit computer time because, unlike direct conversation with quick reaction times, therefor better chance of speaking from the heart, computer productions are formulated around intellect and tends to promote and enforce bias. It tends to get clubby and encourage disrespect among many parties. Whereas to my mind, it’s more interesting to engage with people that think differently than oneself rather than the folk that think in largely the same way. The mental exercise can provide a deeper understanding of your own arguments, strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately it seems that when people disagree, oftentimes ego games flare up, lessening prospects for useful exchange.
If one does some speculative reconstructing of historical events around the time of the bible writing, while assuming a certain consistency in human nature, one may concede the possibility that powerful human elements had a hand in creating and shaping Christianity. While the bible may be divinely inspired, it may be helpful to recognize secular power objectives that were achieved through bible writing also. Short version; Trade routes were sometimes bloody affairs with different people having different gods. The plutocrats said, shit we gotta do something about this, lets call the wise guys, give them money to write a book (or gather existing books) with one god. Wise guys said; Shit yeah, we get money, have a positive impact on history and don’t even have to get our hands dirty. Of course plutocrats got editing rights and did tweak a few things. Point being, the parties involved thought the were doing good things even if the way it was presented and promoted was quite rife with dirty deeds and false representations. My feeling is we will get more cynical before we see the real wonder of God’s creation.
And this could lead to thoughts about Jesus bringing a sword and not peace, maybe another time, or you can take the lead an I will reflect. Now I finally get to personal time. I am a late in life learner of fiddle and today I’m working on Silent Night. It has all the things that I find difficult to do on fiddle. It has double stops all the way through, that is two notes at a time. One has to both shift position and maintain intonation on both notes while also pulling the bow slowly in an even way. None of which I do particularly well so that is what I will go work on.
Hi ClearMiddle,
I share many of your reservations, but approach the issues differently. From an early age I asked for understanding, nothing else as I feel that Creator knows best what is good for me and understanding is something that Creator wants for me anyway. My main question was; why do people suffer and also cause other people to suffer? I left religion but never dispensed with a prayerful attitude toward God. After a time I was informed that our basic understanding of reality was warped and could only produce more stress and not less over time. After another decade of earnest desire to understand the source and nature of the warp-age, I was informed that our collective brain fart is caused by our declaration and acceptance of the notion that the spiritual and physical are fundamentally different. This serves power and tends to mute our heart connection to our Creator.