Hi, Steve and Ricky. Well, Ricky, I wrote that one fingered and just poured in out of the pitcher as sort of my swan song. I figured let it all hang out, just surrender, what have I got to lose, I've been beat up enough, fought back hard, harder than I wanted, got knocked down, got up, and just finally thought I'm just going to spill it out, let 'em have me, ridicule me, what's the use, I got my own dignity and beliefs, and maybe Ricky's right, maybe this is the wrong forum for me, but then I thought, wait, it's not like I've been proselytizing, just the opposite, so here's what I believe. Proof? I can't on an empirical level, so you all win.
I think Steve and I do genuinely sympathize with your experience. As he said, that wasn't his experience of what we'd probably call a conservative (for want of a better word) denomination of Christianity, and as for me growing up, as I said, I'm the product of a leave it to beaver politically liberal family (mom a nurse and teacher, dad a teacher and principal), and I grew up going to about the most liberal denomination of Christianity there is, almost. But theologically, yes, I'll say it: I swallow it all, miracles, healings, and exorcisms, and theologically I believe it all, though, believe me, I can recite chapter and verse of every fine point of theology, presence in the eucharist, transubstantiation, John Calvin that, Martin Luther this, Thomas Cranmer here, and every prominent person in the Reformations there, I know it backward and forward, right and left, and love it all, it's pure bliss, God I love history and the history of Christianity. What these people did to each other is sometimes horrifying, but always human, and behind it all is the search, flawed as it may be.
My personal dilemma was that I can't do without it. Nothing was ever forced on me, I didn't have any bad experiences, I just remember being always, though a pretty rough and tumble kid outdoors, an existentialist bookworm, too, always wondering, questioning the minister about the Book of Revelation, all this esoteric stuff. I grew up with a combat veteran dad who turned to Jungian psychology to deal with stuff, and Jung's writing is very Christian at heart, but more of a Christ within kind of thing. I read everything by Jung, and love it.
But I had some experiences in life, some my own fault, some fate and happenstance, nothing illegal or court related at all. Then a real tragedy hit one of my sons at a very young age. I was floundering, but one thing I do have is courage and I don't give up, though I can get pretty down. I had a great support system, but inside I needed more. The Christianity I grew up with was always there, and I turned to it. I had always been and still am a rationalist, I don't take things whole cloth, I'm very socially liberal and so don't fit into boxes that demand really hard stances on judging other people's sins, so the only thing Christianity said to me was the theological exploration, I didn't feel at all that with studying that and believing that, the basic tenets of Christianity doctrinally, that I had to take any judgmental stands socially. For me, God is a mystery, an unknowable, a vast, vast being that I can barely comprehend, and I think it hubristic to presume his thoughts, but I don't doubt his benevolence and loving nature.But I felt anger at what had happened, and I was trying to reconcile it all.
So, I had to, for me, have an advocate, a pipeline, an intermediary, to him. I won't get into my cosmology, and too detailed theologically, but I wanted to know more about, ok, yes, dare I say the name, Jesus.
I'd been aware for decades of a movement that had been going on for a few centuries since about Enlightenment times generally, called "the search for the historical Jesus." Albert Schweitzer had been studying it, Thomas Jefferson had, it was an actual intellectual endeavor. It really took off in the nineteenth century, and sort of culminated in the 1990s, with a group of scholars called The Jesus Seminar, and subsequently with many New Testament scholars becoming involved. Simply put, it posed this question: Using redaction, language, knowledge of culture, literary structures, and on and on, what can we say the actual Jesus, apart from his "Christology" actually say and do? I did a lot of reading and still do, and I know it sounds ludicrous to most of you, and that's your right, but, from a really hardnosed and rational perspective, historians, theologians, scholars, and combinations of these in one person, can really peel back the gospels and leave you stunned, or at least I can be stunned. Or, I can be ridiculed, I admit it, but I really was left and continue to be, with the conclusion that something surprising and stunning happened historically 1,980 years ago. Now, if you prima facie reject the whole premise, well, that ends it for you, but I'm just telling you how the dilemma faced me that you allude to for yourself. I really examined myself and what I was reading, and these were not just Christian apologists, and I really examined myself: am I just learning what I want to learn? I had to say, no, there's something there, big time. I've mentioned some of these historians and scholars here, but I won't list them all.
Then, and simultaneously, I meshed this with what I knew of psychology, religious experience as related by William James, lots of stuff, and yes, this is where I can't deny that I did some of what Mike said I was doing, I admit it, but I feel it was a legitimate tool when it was used properly, and that was what he brought up called argumentum ad verecundiam, that is, the appeal to authority. It can be misused, but if used properly, so to speak, it has very real legitimacy. That is, the appeal to authority, specifically, what people in history, real people, yes, religious people, and people not religious but brought to it, who experienced religious, well, experiences. I believe some of them.
So, I gotta end this, and yes, this is my swan song. Best way to end it is to give my "opponents" some of what they want.
I feel like Steve does, that this is exhausting, frankly. It's done me good, too, in that it crystallized for me some things, but it's gotta stop.
I got a two inch pile of The New Yorker magazines, an equally high pile of The Atlantic, and I don't know how many The New York Review of Books. I've gotten too deep into this, it was not my intention, I've been offended, had my sense of what I feel is a sacred field, history, offended, but that's my problem, and I know I've offended back, and I've learned some about myself.
Ironically, I've learned that what I used to really enjoy, and I don't blame this on anyone, is that the paranormal field has soured for me, not because of the people here, but these discussions on the forums have made me examine more closely what I really feel about all the paranormal stuff, UFOs and intelligent extraterrestrials even, which used to be spine tingling for me. It's made me examine it more closely, and see that I don't "need" the paranormal, I don't need the old wonderment of are there intelligent aliens, now I'm more than ever convinced that we're all alone, but that's my view, and I don't blame anyone for it, just that examining my own beliefs concerning religion has made me see even more how wonderful we as humans are, our consciousness, and intelligence, not me or you necessarily (!), but humanity. And that makes me believe in God all the more, the beauty of the universe, yes, Mike, that "galactic core" of the Milky Way you mentioned as looking up at one night there in the mountains near Sydney, and I just think, wow, I don't need anything beyond what we have here on earth, though I would certainly like to see it up close.
I don't pretend to understand in religion all the perplexities, the mysteries, the bewilderment, ambiguousness (or is it ambiguity?), puzzlement, and so on that are inherent in it. I just have steadfastly been able to separate out religion from the bad stuff man has done with it, but to see what good things man through God has done with it. I know that sounds syrupy, but so be it, so no more from Kim on this matter, period.
Kim
But, wait I said I was through on the religion thread. Never mind. Carry on.
However, I still remember my baptism and it was awesome. I've never forgotten that.
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