The Christ Conundrum.

Ah, you missed my point. Progressive Christians believe Christianity is about the example of Jesus and His central message of love, not a bunch of creeds and dogmas formulated long ago by religious politicians. We believe that believe that the Bible is to be taken seriously but not literally (so do the Catholic Church and "mainline" Protestant denominations), and that and historical-metaphorical approach to the Bible, guided by the hermeneutic of Jesus' message of love, peace and social justice, can unlock wisdom and serve as a guide to life. As early as the third century, a leading Christian theologian challenged the literal interpretation of Genesis, which he said was just an allegory.

Christianity began to go off the rails not long after Jesus' death, when Paul made it more about Jesus' death and resurrection and believing in that rather than about his life and message. Then Constantine transformed the Prince of Peace into General Jesus. In Jesus Wars, Prof. Philip Jenkins describes how four patriarchs, three queens, and two emperors decided what Christians would believe. But we don't have to go along. They can't burn is at the stake anymore--at least yet They can tell us we're going to Hell, but we can ignore them. And they can say we're not real Christians, but we can rely "Same to you, buddy". We can read the Bible with the help of Jesus' hermeneutic and use it and Him as our guide to meaning.

This is an obscure analogy for a bunch of competing denominations. who don't even agree on the game they're playing: Is it "getting to heaven when they die" (the goal post, I suppose) or is it "living a meaningful and moral life"? There are not two teams but many and they're competing for the hearts and minds of the spectators.(a better analogy might be a beauty contest). What is the "ball"? Seems to me the folks going through the motions are churchgoers who go through the perfunctory motions for an hour on Sunday and screw their neighbors the rest of the week.

To me it's largely a matter of giving credit where credit is due--not a

I don't think claiming that is a big deal. To me, it's also a matter of keeping in mind my principal role model. I think role models are important to keep in mind. For example, I have a high opinion of several past politicians who to me exemplified statesmanship--a quality sorely lacking in our current breed. I think it's really important to keep such figures in mind and follow their example. And I do consider Jesus to be divine--just not in the sense I thought you were using the term--as some supernatural entity who sits on a cloud and does magic tricks. 1John 4:8, 1 John 4:16 tell us "God is Love". Jesus, by His example and teachings is the principal medium through which I experience God and the numinous, who is, inter alia, Love, the summation of human idealism, and the ultimate meaning. Jesus is therefore divine in the only sense that counts.

There we differ radically in our concept of religion. You seem to think of it in terms of deities, but many scholars view it as a cluster of four additional traits and consider something as a religion if it has most of them: creed, code, cultus, community.(Prothero, God Is Not One). By that definition, Buddhism is a religion (maybe not the scaled down version practiced by secular atheists). Atheism per se is not a religion, but when atheists develop rituals like "presentation of the child" and hold Sunday services in their own megachurches, as they do in some communities, they become a religion, like it or not! Atheist 'mega-churches' take root across US, world I adhere to Borg theology (creed), follow Jesus' dharma (code), participate in communion (cultus), and attend regular worship services and Sunday school and social events with coreligionists (community). This is hardly just "a philosophy".

But I should clarify. We don't think Progressive Christians are a different religion from our traditional brothers and sisters. We simply have a different understanding of what Jesus was about and what the Bible means. We tend to go to the same churches, for the most part., and when asked what our religion is, will say "Christian", not "Progressive Christian", just as a Progressive Democrat would still say "Democrat". when asked for party affiliation. This is not too different from second century Christianity, when Gnostics attended the same churches and prayed together with mainstream Christians, until the latter drew the line and kicked them out.

I think this is a non-sequitor. First of all, I don't think Progressive Christians claim to be a separate religion, but rather are a distinct "school" or perspective within the Christian religion. My primary fellowship groups--one Sunday school in the First United Methodist Church and another in the First Christian Church--meet in the same building with traditional Christians and join them for services afterwards. Doctrinally, we might as will be separate religions in some respects, but we share some broader commonalities with the rest of the congregations, and can respond to the same prayers, hymns, and scriptural passages which we understand differently.

Yours and lots of Christians. I feel the same way about some of them--in fact some strike me as Latter Day Pharisees. Jesus gave us the fructose test for telling the authentic from the fake. (Mat.7:15-20). False teachings bear bitter fruits. I'd say the versions of Christianity that stress believing the unbelievable and focus on personal salvation, doctrinal conformity (even worse, prosperity) to the neglect of our obligations toward our neighbors are in deep spiritual trouble. Many of them follow Trump. What more can I say?

I take exception to the "merely" part. Consciousness, thoughts and concepts, ideas and ideals, are the most important things in life. I'm painfully aware of this meat that I drag around, but I think of my mental life as more important. If you ask me "what am I", I'd say the sum of my thoughts, ideals and memories at a given time. The important thing about God is that (S)he is the summation of idealism. The important thing about Jesus is that He is the Logos.

There you go again with the "merely". The only thing immediately accessible to us is our consciousness. Presumably, that is, in a sense, partly the "product" of physiological processes, although as I mentioned, neuroscientist and atheist Sam Harris has doubts about that. The thoughts themselves seem more like energy and have yet adequately to be explained by science. And of course they are a function of interactions between present inputs and stored memories. I assume that the thoughts are "completely natural", since everything is "completely natural", except perhaps God. But nature is also a mystery. Jung saw the basis of religion in our collective conscious. He may have been right--or not. When I have religious experiences, I leave open alternative naturalistic and super-naturalistic interpretations.

No, it doesn't. As previously mentioned, I think the appearance of Jesus in Judea circa 1 C.E. is explicable by the historical dynamics of the period. His alleged appearance specifically in Bethlehem is probably the result of Matthew and Luke telling the story in a way that conformed to prophecy. (Remember, one of the reasons I think He actually existed is that the Nazareth connection, if not true, would create unnecessary complications or them in getting Him to Bethlehem, which it did.) The other gospels are silent on that matter. And of course, as scientifically minded folks, we can't rule out the possibility that there is some Omniscient, Omnipotent being that decided to send His Son down here at that time because (S)he felt like it. Even Dawkins is willing to say "there probably is no God."

You might ask the same question of Muslims (although it could be more dangerous): why did Allah send his messenger to Muhammad (pbuh), an obscure caravan operator in seventh century Arabia, when he could have picked some emperor in Constantinople or Sana'a (capital of the Sassanian empire)? Answers you might receive would be: because Allah willed it, or because condiitons were ripe for it.

Well, I think He's special, which is why I call myself a Christian, so there..

 

Karen so-and-so (I don't know who - Tishomingo was saying her ideas included separating Logos (the logical, I would assume) and Mythos, which included religion/religions as sorts of though I think. Not absolutely sure on that...

On faith - I feel like faith is about belief and having to do with the strength of ones belief in Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, or other religions' deities.

What do I believe? My belief system is founded in Catholicism! However, I am not (nor have I been for a long long time) a practicing Catholic.

What critical thinking...

My thoughts are my own. I do not purport that they are part of my religion, and further acknowledge that they likely depart, as you pointed out about liberal or progressive Christianities, from my religion. So, is it really my religion? Some would argue no. I will claim though until I die that it is my religion (Catholicism), or be excommunicated for heresy or some such... I love my church.

That said, I have given a lot of philosophical thought to how people establish their thinking habits, how to strengthen the connections (hardwiring the brain) for belief! or actually for credibility and integrity (for gaining the trust of others, and being believable and genuine). What I mean by hardwire the brain for credibility and integrity is, how do we become more believable, more appealing to the senses of others? How does it look when you film it? Does it look natural when you speak? Do you have to try very hard for the words to connect with the thoughts? I think that a sense of collective wellbeing - be it through acceptance & friendships, or by through belonging to a team or other group, or in this case a faith or love of God - goes a long way to strengthen your accountability in the eyes of others. In a sense, you become more popular, more marketable.

Thought schemas associated with religion in my own mind are stronger and more articulated than those that are, say, associated with science. And in my heart & emotions, when science and religion disagree I want to believe in religion; even though I know better. Schemas have to do with, like, data retrieval I think.

I think that you can sort of be spiritual without religion, but eventually you start to ask yourself "Am I legitimate?" or am I just walking around saying Om, or Namaste. As far as religion being needed, I believe that people can become self-aware and actualized other ways, though maybe not as efficiently and I think less credibly because other people will like it better if it's due to religion than - oh, I don't know - bioenergetics or some kind of behavior modification and therapy.

So, the new age soul is a fully capable one, but I think perhaps a lonely one. There aren't lots of new-agers (if we're talking about new-agers, or calling them new-agers for that matter).

When I'm using the term spirituality, I'm using the term as more of a nod to religion than as interchangeably.

 

Lots of scholars would disagree. See:
Stephen Prothero, God is Not One
L. Swindler and Paul Mojzes, The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue
Mark Berkson (2012) Cultural Literacy for Religion , Great Courses.
Chapter 15. Religion – Introduction to Sociology – 2nd Canadian Edition
An Anthropological Approach to Religion A summary of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheistic_religio

Of course you can, and so can I, as long as we make clear how we're using it. But that doesn't establish it as the official definition that can be used to settle arguments.
I'm defining religion the way it's often defined by scholars in the field of religious studies.
.

??? For I think about the third time, I don't claim that Jesus isn't divine as I define "divine"--just not in the crudely literal, superstitious sense, the way the average pagan on the street would, as controller of natural forces and good fortune."1John 4:8, 1 John 4:16 tell us "God is Love". Jesus, by His example and teachings is the principal medium through which I experience God and the numinous, who is, inter alia, the personification of Love, the summation of human idealism, and the ultimate meaning. Jesus is therefore divine in the only sense that counts." That quoted from my previous post.

Not all Christians. See, for example, Paul Tillich, often regarded as one of the greatest Protestant theologians of the Twentieth Century:"the Ground of All Being". :
.

And I contend that. as expilcated ad nauseum , He was a probably real person from 1st century Nazareth who, like other messianic claimants of the time, was crucified by the Romans and became the subject of that narrative you mention. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

My point in getting involved in the current go-around was simply to point out that there are a significant number of people who have a claim on being followers of Jesus who aren't phased by your "conundrum" about the time and place of His debut, because they don't take it literally (only Christian literalists think it matters) and certainly don't think His mission was to maximize market share. If you think about it, the bigger questions are: if God wanted us all to believe in Him and become Christians, why didn't He just program us that way? If God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, why did He create a flawed being, knowing we would sin, and then get so pissed off that he had to send Jesus to be sacrificed millennia later? And why would God require his beloved son to die a horrible death to appease Himself because His own creation went haywire? If those conundrums don't bother a person, why would the one you bring up matter? Maybe a metaphorical approach could resolve the conundrums.

Nobody said it did.

 

All very true and interesting, but beside the point, which as I recall was that Catholics and mainline Protestant churches don't require a literal interpretation of scripture. Which is why they don't deny evolution.

 

One last point, left over from last night:

Lin Chi, a master the Ch'an tradition, forerunner of zen, was notorious for abrupt, harsh encounters with students, including striking, shouting and the use of paradox aimed at to bring a the moment of enlightenment,or realization of the emptiness of intellectual concepts. His statement "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" is useful for its shock value and its emphasis that the Buddha shouldn't be turned into a fetish. As you indicate, in the zen tradition the master guides the student toward enlightenment by such techniques. But it would be naive, I think, to suppose the guidance toward the "right thing" doesn't have direction rooted in the dharma of the Buddha. If your inner journey leads you to sensuous misconduct., false speech, taking what isn't given,using intoxicants that cloud the mind, or taking life, your spiritual journey has been a flop.The Dharma being followed is the Buddha's. In that sense, the Buddha is needed. Why not give credit where credit is due.

The place of the Buddha varies a lot from one sect of Buddhism to another. In visits to Buddhist temples in Thailand, I was struck by the intensity of devotion demonstrated by Buddhists kneeling and performing rituals before statues of the Buddha in the Theravada tradition. From outward appearance, it looked every bit as intense as s scenes I've encountered before statues of saints in Catholic churches who also are not supposed to be worshiped, only revered. The many images of the Buddha found in Theravada, Mahayana, and especially Vajrayana countries, with multiple images in the mandalas found in homes, attest to the fact that he is in the hearts and minds of the people who "trust in the three treasures; trust in Buddha, in the dharma, and in the sangha".

 

When we're talking about definitions, there is no right or wrong, only more or less useful. The fact that a definition is widely used by scholars in the field means that there are other ways of looking at it besides yours. It's a widely used definition, admittedly broad, but widely used by anthropologists. My point was to show that there are other accepted ways of using the term besides yours.

The reason they define religion this way is because they found the old-fashioned approach too limiting. They noticed that there are large populations who in many respects seem to be doing things similar to theists but lack a belief in a deity. Three choices are open: to dismiss them as "philosophies", to come up with some new label for them, or to say they are "godless religions"and use a cluster approach to decide whether a particular practice can be considered a religion. You'll find that most textbooks on religion include Buddhism and Taoism as religions.

Jurisprudence ran into a similar dilemma decades ago, when law was defined in positivist terms a command of the sovereign. Anthropologists went off to South Pacific islands like the Trobriands and discovered that there didn't seem to be any bosses. So some said they were "lawless" But others, like Malinowski, noticed that people could walk on the beach at night without getting mugged, and argued for a broader concept of law that enabled us to appreciate how they were so well-regulated. Cultural jurisprudence was born!

"Formulating conceptions of a general order of existence"? The Boy Scouts? I don't think so. It's a widely used definition, admittedly broad, but used by anthropologists. And I gave you several sources. Can't get by by cherry-picking one. My point was to show that there are other accepted ways of using the term besides yours.

Most physicists have a stake in physics. Most biologists have a stake in biology. etc. BTW Geertz was an anthropologist, so I guess he had a stake in anthropology. And your point is?

Of course you don't. lol

How old-fashioned! "Tillich, along with contemporary Karl Barth, is considered by many as one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century." Paul Tillich
"Tillich thinks and writes as a Christian apologist. He tries to view Christianity from the outside as well as from the inside, and is intensely concerned about man's situation in the twentieth century. He remarks, 'Most of my writings try to define the way in which Christianity is related to secular culture." https://churchsociety.org/docs/churchman/088/Cman_088_2_Thiselton.pdf Whatever one might call Tillich, he isn't a pantheist. A pantheist believes that God is co-extensive with nature. Tillich isn't much concerned with nature at all. He isn't even a panentheist like most Progressive Christians.

And you seem to be more Baptist than Buddhist or atheist. Iif we were sprinkled instead of dunked, can we still be Christian? What if we believe in evolution or are pro-choice? Progressive Christianity—is Christianity

What you say is mostly true of traditional, especially fundamentalist, Christians. But there are a significant number of us in mainline Protestant churches and even the Catholic church (think John Dominic Crossan) who are more open, and are more attracted to Jesus' example and message of peace, love and understanding than to the Pauline emphasis of death, resurrection and getting to Heaven when we die. Some atheists like Sam Harris get upset with us because he thinks the real, authentic Christians must be the old-fashioned kind, easier to bash..But what does he know? He's just an atheist with a veneer of Buddhism for spiritual uplift (judging from his Type A personality, he needs Buddhism badly, but from his virulent anti-Muslim screeds it may not be working). On the other hand, as I've argued, many of those old-fashioned kind of Christians that Sam prefers ,seem to be hung up on form and dogma and are in many ways antithetical to the Jesus they purport to follow. They support Trump. How Christian is that?

I think it's time to end our conversation, since believe it or not, I do have a life--and a wife! Great talking to you.

 

No progress , huh ? Why ?

Because this Corun Drum makes fictional music of no inspiration
or consequence and in the basement of the internet .

 

Jesus hates Trump
Krisna hates Trump
Buddha hates Trump

 

Mohammad hates trump.
Lao tzu
Confucius hates Trump
Zoroaster hates Trump
Quetzalcoatl hates Trump
Anybody with a conscience and a brain should hate Trump!

 

This ^^^

 

Yes , yooz love yo enemy .

 

Now that raises a dilemma for the Christian literalist: Love they enemy. Love Trump, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. What does it mean? And is it a good thing? I think it means being compassionate. But it doesn't mean condoning wrongful actions, or ignoring the fact that these people are (were) dangerous monsters who need to be opposed. The Evangelicals like to say about gays (while being hypocritical); "Love the sinner, hate the sin." While I don't think gays are particularly sinful, I think the principle makes sense. In the movie Max, John Cusack plays a Jewish art dealer who finds some merit in Hitler's paintings and is about to meet with him in what could have been a life-changing experience, but was beaten to death by some Nazi Stormtroopers. Himmler had some good to him too: he loved dogs, even tho he didn't have the same regard for people. From what clinical psychologist Mary Trump says about her uncle, he is one sick puppy who had a messed up childhood from a father who was similarly messed up ("the sins of the fathers...").

So I think at some level we need to mourn the circumstances that made these people so twisted & feel sorry for them. But that doesn't mean we condone their actions or pass up opportunities to oppose them. In the real world, it's difficult to separate the sinner from his actions, which good people need to be protected from. We may turn our own cheek, but shouldn't turn the cheeks of others or turn our backs on them when they're being abused by these monsters. But if feasible we should also, out of compassion, do everything we can to help people like Hitler and Trump turn their lives around. Tough love!

 

I have some time to answer your questions, but give me a break. I have to tell you what "scholars" are? "Scholar: a learned or erudite person, especially one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject." Definition of scholar | Dictionary.com I'd say that people who have Ph.D.s , publish articles in refereed journals of their disciplines, and /or write books or textbooks that are widely cited or used in college classrooms are scholars. All of the individuals I mentioned meet those criteria.Those are, once again;

• Stephen Prothero, God is Not One. Professor of Religion at Boston University and author of eight books on religion.

• L. Swindler , professor of religion at Temple University and author of over fifty books, including Buddhism Made Plain

• Paul Mojzes , Professor Emeritus of Religion at Rosemont College and co-editor of the Journal of Inter-religious Studies.

• Mark Berkson, Professor and Chair in the Department of Religion at Hamline University, author of , and teacher of courses in t in Asian religions (including the Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist and Hindu traditions), has received multiple fellowships for his work in Asian religions.
• Clifford Geertz, considered to be the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States" for decades R.A. Shweder and B. Good, eds.(2005) Clifford Geertz by His Colleagues was professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago .Anthropologist Talal Asad claims that Geertz provided “the most influential, certainly the most accomplished, anthropological definition of religion to have appeared in the last two decades”Huston Smith, Author of ‘The World’s Religions,’ Dies at 97 (Published 2017). , author of 13 books,

You may add to the list:

• Houston Smith, Professor of religious studies at Syracuse University,The World's Religions ,one of the most widely used college textbooks on comparative religion, "widely regarded as one of the world's most influential figures in religious studies", author of 13 books on world religions, who spent five years in a zen Buddhist monastery in Japan and several years studying Tibetan Buddhism.
• David S. Noss, professor of religious studies at Heidelberg college 7 author of A History of the World's Religions, in its fourteenth edition--the leading rival to Smith's book as a comparative religion text.

All of these scholars have in common, besides their outstanding credentials, the fact that they think it is useful to treat Buddhism as a religion. If you have comparable sources who say it shouldn't be regarded as a religion, I'd be glad to consider them.

Such a sweeping generalization. If you're talking college textbooks and it were true, we'd certainly be in big trouble: our textbooks that college students are learning from being written by folks who don't know what they're talking about. This understanding is comparable to the Trumpsters' notion that professional journalism is just "fake news". But the scholars I've mentioned do seem to know what they're talking about.
“

There’s a big difference between pep rallies, tearing down the goal post, and Boy Scout ceremonies, on the one hand, and the kinds of rituals many Buddhists engage in, on the other. I don't think the Boy Scouts or the cheer leaders are seeking enlightenment or escape from samsara. "Through meditation, Siddhartha Gautama intimately experienced Thusness beyond subject and object, self and other, life and death. The enlightenment experience is the sine qua non of Buddhism.” The Key to Understanding Buddhism.

Many scholars find it useful to call it a religion instead of inventing some new term. To call it a philosophy would suggest that it's merely about ideas. It's quite obvious that Buddhism and Taoism are not mainly about those and are more than those, and have most of the other characteristics that are found in religions: creed (the sutras), code (the dharma), cultus (rituals including meditation), and the sanghas. Calling it a religion draws attention to those similarities.There are even some elements of metaphysics (e.g.,samsara, karma).

As an atheist who has turned to Buddhism for spiritual uplift, Sam Harris is understandably allergic to the term "religion" because of the theistic baggage it carries. Is that the problem? The austere Buddhism which you describe, sounding much like Sam’ secular version, is atypical of the Mahayana tradition, with its bodhisattvas and celestial buddha. For example, Pure Land Buddhism, one of the most widely followed in East Asia, teaches that it’s impossible to reach Pure Land enlightenment by oneself, but that it can be attained by chanting the name of the Buddha Amitabha (Amida) that moves in us. You and Sam are certainly entitled to follow that path, but you might recognize it isn’t the only path to nirvana.

You're welcome.