Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:19 PM

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:07 PM

It never ceases to astound me that for a religion that purports to be all about love, there is so much hate and divisiveness in it’s various sects.

Agreed. Love must be very difficult for us.

I don’t think so Bruce. It’s all about education. If Erik Fromm’s The Art of Loving were a Bible, we’d all be a lot better off.

Answerer - 06 December 2011 08:23 PM

Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:19 PM

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:07 PM

It never ceases to astound me that for a religion that purports to be all about love, there is so much hate and divisiveness in it’s various sects.

Agreed. Love must be very difficult for us.

I don’t think so Bruce. It’s all about education. If Erik Fromm’s The Art of Loving were a Bible, we’d all be a lot better off.

You could make it the Bible, Qur’an and Bjagavad Gita all rolled up into one, and there would still be hatred.

Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:29 PM

Answerer - 06 December 2011 08:23 PM

Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:19 PM

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:07 PM

It never ceases to astound me that for a religion that purports to be all about love, there is so much hate and divisiveness in it’s various sects.

Agreed. Love must be very difficult for us.

I don’t think so Bruce. It’s all about education. If Erik Fromm’s The Art of Loving were a Bible, we’d all be a lot better off.

You could make it the Bible, Qur’an and Bjagavad Gita all rolled up into one, and there would still be hatred.

Yeah. But at least you’re not teaching it.

Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:19 PM

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:07 PM

It never ceases to astound me that for a religion that purports to be all about love, there is so much hate and divisiveness in it’s various sects.

Agreed. Love must be very difficult for us.

I would say, rather, that hate is all too easy for us.
Love doesn’t seem to be a problem for many of us - inside our various personal comfort zones.

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:32 PM

Ecurb Noselrub - 06 December 2011 08:19 PM

Jefe - 06 December 2011 08:07 PM

It never ceases to astound me that for a religion that purports to be all about love, there is so much hate and divisiveness in it’s various sects.

Agreed. Love must be very difficult for us.

I would say, rather, that hate is all too easy for us.
Love doesn’t seem to be a problem for many of us - inside our various personal comfort zones.

Right, Jefe, hate is easy, it takes no effort. But love ...

The first thing we have to learn is that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art. Maybe here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obvious failures: in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power - almost all our energy is used for learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.

Could it be that only these things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which ONLY profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend much energy on?

Man can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the prehuman harmony which is irretrievably lost.

-Fromm

SkepticX - 06 December 2011 02:56 PM

Brick Bungalow - 06 December 2011 12:18 PM

SkepticX - 06 December 2011 10:39 AM

Brick Bungalow - 06 December 2011 10:23 AM

Liberal Christianity: Reaching out with sloth like patience to grasp things that have been obvious for centuries. I apologize for not being impressed.

Well, you can’t impose previous generations of Christian blindness on the current one though ... eh? No one can reasonably be blamed for the mistakes of their forefathers.

Eh?

Agreed. But neither do I feel obligated to extend them the benefit of a cultural double standard.

I’m not following you.

I mean, I agree with the comment, but I don’t understand its pertinence here, or to what double standard you’re referring ... ?

Just that claims do not attain some special category by inclusion in a christian tradition. My evaluation of the doctrine of hell is based on my total ethical worldview. So while I’m glad that a select few christians have abandoned the idea that nonbelievers burn for eternity I don’t consider this to be a brilliant insight. But just the long overdue purge of a toxic idea. What IS brilliant is the courage to stand up for something worthy in the face of community opposition but that’s a different conversation.

This is actually quite important. Because I believe in an authentic respect for persons that doesn’t condescend. I hear liberal christians exploring the idea that perhaps personifying the creator of the universe as a misogynistic desert warlord isn’t the best idea ever. This is true but its also painfully obvious. And has been so for a long time. I support remedial learning but feel motivated by honesty to call it what it is. Catching up.

The double standard I refer to is the same one that gives religions permission to abuse people in the name of their faith. That makes a religious rape or murder or theft somehow less repugnant than the same act perpetrated by a non religious person. Its echoed, in my opinion, by the impulse to be impressed when a believer displays a grasp of the obvious.

I know I’m projecting my own rage here and taking the thread on a tangent. So, my apologies for that. But it’s due in part to the fact that I know a lot of smart religious people. And I want to hold them to an equitable standard.

Ecurb Noselrub - 05 December 2011 07:48 PM

Assume for the sake of argument that Sprong’s view of God was correct. Would you believe?

Pardon me for dragging the conversation back so far, but admitting religion is optional doesn’t help religion’s case of having veracity.  I’d be able to better answer your question if religion gave up woo and became a philosophy.