Search results

The simple version of Deism goes like this: God sets His creation in motion, then backs off and watches it, not interfering. Lets "human morality and reason" take over. God sets the rules, starts the game, then sits back and indifferently watches the game play out. Lets affective and cognitive...

Defining Divinity 1a. Looked at scientifically, belief (in anything) is a hypothesis. (God is a theory.) 1b. But belief (in anything) never exists in a vacuum. Belief is always socially organized. (Even within an individual. Belief has to come from somewhere. Family, friends, community...

Rereading the The Book of J and comparing it to Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers (with their later additions by other authors of the Scriptures) ... something struck me as interesting: Yahweh "shows favor" on this individual or "gives his blessing" to that individual. Yahweh is "pleased" ... But...

Most if not all religions exhibit - as one of their devotional rites - the idea of purity. This good or bad? & & & Cleanliness. Asceticism. Discipline. Correct mind. Correct body ... Spiritual purity. Sectarian distinctions of class, race, gender ... Innate hierarchy based upon dogmatic...

All mammals are social creatures. Mammals of the same species interact with each other. Herd together. Aid in the raising of each others' young, to some minor degree. But when hominids began to experiment with walking upright, 4 to 7 million years ago, something new (in terms of evolution)...

William James: I saw a moving sight the other morning before breakfast in a little hotel where I slept in the dusty fields. The young man of the house shot a little wolf called coyote in the early morning. The little heroic animal lay on the ground, with his big furry ears, and his clean white...

Is the 'religious instinct' hardwired into people? & & & Inca ceremonies carried their mummified kings of old, in a procession, thru the streets of Cuzco. When the Spanish conquered the Inca Empire, the Catholic church did not put an end to this 'Pagan' ritual. Catholicism, instead, co-opted...

Divine Communication 1. Prehension of Truth 'Prehension' is a term you sometimes find in texts on neurophysiology and child-development. It is the mental extension of motor-development, which means 'to grasp.' I will extend the meaning even further, on these pages, to mean: The sudden and raw...

I did a foolish thing, this last vacation. My two kids and I got two invites, by different relatives, to spend Christmas and New Years with them. We chose the larger gathering, and had a very nice time. But, to that side of the family which lost out, I promised we'd drive over for a short...

You don't need gods, or God, to have a religion. You just need a strong affirmative belief. & & & But where does the sense of the Divine - sense of being touched by the Divine - come from? I'm thinking ... from communication. (but not ... just any old communication)...

Harold Bloom considers The Book of J - even mutilated as it is by the Redactor's scissors - to be one of the triumphs of world literature. On a par with the Iliad (Homer), The Divine Comedy (Dante), or Hamlet (and other central plays by Shakespeare). The J-author (or Yahweh-author) wrote much...

I don't know the history of Monism ... as a theological or philosophical idea (if Monism has such a history). But it sounds kind of close to what I believe. A core belief. & & & We - each (and perhaps collectively) - are a single substance. There is no body-soul dualism. (Dualism= The...

LIFE is secular. (LIFE is also sacred. To be cherished.) All of human (and Humanist) Philosophy is an attempt to define and explain LIFE, and how it should be lived. More life. Ethical life. The scientific. The sociopolitical. The esthetic. Each are ... About LIFE. (The glories of LIFE. How...

I would only add, regarding God (in Genesis) creating "the Heavens and the Earth" ... The Earth (though formless) did not come first, followed by the Sun and stars. (God created the Heavens in a split-second with the Big Bang. God then waited 9 billion years or so before creating the Sun and...

A human being is genetically hardwired with a long childhood, compared to other animals. Did years of dependence upon parents (and their adult substitutes) as a child, condition the human individual to rely upon this emotional feeling of protection? A necessary, life-long hedge against...

Lucia and the Snake ... (a fable) The year is 1853. Lucia, Isabel, Fatima, and Joelle leave their convent school in San Miguel, Portugal. Lucia sails for Bora Mukai. Isabel leaves for Kenya. Fatima books passage for Brazil. And Joelle heads out to New Guinea. Each depart with devout...

horizon event Monotheism was born in Babylon (not Jerusalem), 26 centuries ago. This was a God of Hate. A God of Retribution. A God of Punishment. & & & The polytheistic gods of Sumer and, later, of Egypt ... were temperamental. They had their good days and their bad days. But humans...

Miracles are never miraculous - never supernatural. Miracles are either ... 1. Something natural, but misunderstood. 2. A fraud - magician's trickery. Or ... 3. Sheer coincidence. & & & A male member of my family on my mother's line, 200-some years ago, was laid out in church at his...

horizon event To my reading of modern archeology, Eden is not a mythical place. It was a real one. This place was bounded: - On the east by the Caspian Ocean. - On the north by the Caucasus Mountains and by a (then) mammoth freshwater lake (which is, now, an even larger body of water - the...