So what's the story to be?

[nativeastral]

I really like the story in John 1 and do not think it is of mixed pagan origin.

Jesus life is possibly the best story you could hope for, and it is pro interfaith. The complex 'logos' explanations and comparisons are a way of relating the story with pagans, but the expression 'In the beginning' is probably a 100% Jewish mystical usage. The beginning of Jesus ministry is considered a new creation, characterized by light coming into the world. The light, itself, judges darkness, as opposed to a human judge doing it. This really is an amazing interfaith paradigm. I don't know much about other religions, but I think from what I've seen this is pretty much a giant piece of tape connecting them all.

I sense there are many religions out there which can respect and benefit from this. This new creation of John 1 is created through Jesus, so he is the author and finisher of that creation in a sense -- though not the author of the word, nor of the creation in Genesis though he and 'his creation' is included as part of that creation. He is the light in John 1, which comes after the word. His followers consider themselves prizms of that light. Rather than being the word he is called 'the word made flesh'. Instead, the word dwells in us as the lampstand in a tabernacle. It is similar to the gnostic 'Divine spark' but not exactly. This word concept, while captured in Greek with 'Logos' actually is Jewish I suspect. Hark back to Genesis 1 where the creation was finished by seven spoken phrases. Despite the fact that we are all here, the end of our lives is included in the words spoken in Genesis and we are part of that 'Finished' creation from heaven's perspective. Similarly, Jesus is a new creation, part of the larger creation, of which christians are a part, a creation that is already finished though we humans do not yet perceive the end of it.

my grandfather john, a deepsea fisherman, quoted him verbatim when he was drunk and put the heeby jeebies in me; only when singing like a gaelic did l feel 'the light'.

the light and the word are definitely 2 concepts which all the religions have at their core; 'of which christians are a part' should have no place for this new inclusive 'story', since we all agree that all the extant religions seem to rub each other up the wrong way, particularly within the religions themselves.

this story cannot be sectarian.

 

[Dream]

this story cannot be sectarian.

Rather than respond, I will go over and read some more of the 'Rome in Transition' thread, which I am having to catch up on again. (It grows quickly whenever I'm not looking.)

 

[Penelope]

[SIZE=+1]We have so much conflict and confusion due to there being too many stories as to:

1. what we are;
and
2. why we are here/why we exist.

Every religion is differentiated by its own exclusive version or twist to those 2 questions.

... it really isn't a new religion which we need, but rather a better story.

[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]Excuse me, Shawn, for how I am about to parse this question.
[SIZE=+1]It is an important question to me, too.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]I wish to whittle it down to something manageable.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]& & &[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]1. Who am I?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]This is a philosophical question. A secular story.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]Which I, in living my life, am acting out - to answer.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]1a. The answer will be part scientific: mix of DNA and upbringing. (Nature/nurture.) Thus two interlocking stories.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]1b. The answer will be part idealism: mix of, in my inner life-growth, how I individualize myself and how I socialize myself. (Hero with a 1000 Faces/How to Make Friends & Influence People.) Two more interlocking stories.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]This secular metaphysics already has four interlocking stories. What are the odds that you can weave these cleanly into a singular story? So that different people in the room (nonetheless persons halfway across the globe) will be able to resist favoring one of the narratives over the other three?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]And we haven't even gotten, yet, to Door Number 2.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]& & &[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]Who am I? might be a religious question, by some manner of thinking. But, to me, it is not a theological question.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]I would nix this question entirely, in your quest for a story, Shawn.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1](There is no godhead in metaphysics. Only emotional quibbles and frayed thoughts.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]& & &[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]2. What am I doing here? (What is the purpose of my life?)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]This is a theological question. It invokes a sacred narrative.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]Here the "I" converts easily to "we." (What are we doing here?)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1](The quest of one ... can also be the quest of a few ... can also be the quest of the many ... can also be the quest of all.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]This still begs the question of what that singular narrative is. But this does clear out some of the underbrush. Simplifies the process.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]& & &[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1](It might help if a massive asteroid were bearing down on our planet – putting us all in the same boat. Putting us all on-the-brink. That would be your collective narrative. Maybe we all will be at that point when the fossil fuels start to run out.)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]It may be that this story - you seek - is a story you, or I, cannot create for everybody else ...[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]It may just be a story we all need to create together.[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

 

[shawn]

[SIZE=+1]It may just be a story we all need to create together.[/SIZE]

Absolutely.
The way it usually goes is I show you my truth and then you show me your truth and then we argue...er...debate about it till the cows come home.
But IMO we need to get past all that and find some common bedrock that we all can agree on and start to work our way up from there.
In a way, that is what these types of forums are supposed to facilitate, and they do to some degree, but I have seen over the years of participating in a variety of them that such will happen very rarely.
People are pretty stuck in their opinions for the most part.
This is the ego which says "I am right"(and all those who are not on the same page are wrong).
We all have that problem to one degree or another.

The point with this thread was to discuss the fundamental issue which we humans face, namely, without a story in common, we are going to continue to be at odds with each other and that is unacceptable given the level of our technology.
We are too dangerous as a species to be involved in such petty bickering.

 

[Penelope]

I worry, sometimes.
30 years down the road, when my children are my age.
That the nations of the world will be fighting resource wars.

That those of us who wish to reach out to others and find "common ground" will be overwhelmed by the impulse reactions of the majority of our society – our society's knee-jerk fear.
No electricity, no gasoline, no jobs, no food.
"We've got the army, we've got the technology, let's just take what we need. The countries which control these resources are just being unreasonable in not wanting to share them with us. So no more Mr. NiceGuy. If they are not going to play fair, we'll show them what 'not playing fair' is all about! Two can play at this game!"

The threat of global warming or suicide bombers may come to seem of laughable importance – faced with immediate day to day survival.

& & &

Perhaps, Shawn, the answer – your "story" – really is secular.

(And utopian. Like Rob Hopkins' grassroots "Transition" movement.)
Urging our communities to adopt a Green zero-carbon strategy, for a date-certain 20 years from now. To commit to it, unambiguously, and set up a plan (as has been done in Sandpoint, Idaho – a community in my own backyard). Leave no carbon footprint.

(I want to "do my part."
But, even with subsidies, I cannot afford right now to put solar panels on my roof. And to make this practical I would have to cut down two trees, and talk two of my neighbors into topping several of their trees. So I've virtually dismissed that option. And I'm just not ready to build a greenhouse encompassing my entire backyard in order to grow year-around vegetables.
All of which makes me feel like a hypocrite.)

& & &

But I still think the most workable answer, even to this potentially dire situation, is theological.

If some kind of Planet-wide fellow-feeling can be attained.
Where everyone on the planet feels they have a stake, and everyone is willing to risk reaching out toward one another.

A willingness to suffer together, if suffering is necessary. A willingness to share, even where there is no legal or financial or ethical obligation to do so. To genuinely care.

& & &

I personally do not believe that utopian secularism can ever achieve this. You have to reach deeper into people than to their sense of local self-reliance and humanitarian good-will. Yes, this kind of behavior is pragmatic, productive behavior. But it is also vain behavior. Behavior slated to maintain a positive good image of oneself. Personal dignity.

Only behavior which reaches gladly beyond ...
Beyond the borders of the self.
Beyond the borders of that self's material and psychological self-interest.
No. It seems to me, Shawn, that only behavior which starts within this frontier ...
Only behavior which sparks to life within this egoless no-man's-land ...

Can begin to make this Planet a genuinely safe place for our children, and for their children, and beyond ...

& & &

Good luck with your story. "Our" story.
The more I think about it, Shawn, the more I ...
Know ... we all (desperately) need it.

 

[Eudaimonist]

All religions have come about due to their engineers seeing that the main problem with human society is the lack of a single unifying story, which is essential if one wishes to get people working together.

I'm normally a positive and optimistic person, but I have to regard this is an unachievable goal. You'll never find such a story, unless of course your goal is to convert people away from their personal truths. No story will be compatible with all religions, and certainly not all peoples, religious and non-religious.

If it were as easy as finding a story one likes to base a society on, I would choose Atlas Shrugged. But then there evaporates all religions, and even most secular worldviews.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Tao_Equus]

I worry, sometimes.
30 years down the road, when my children are my age.
That the nations of the world will be fighting resource wars.

That those of us who wish to reach out to others and find "common ground" will be overwhelmed by the impulse reactions of the majority of our society – our society's knee-jerk fear.
No electricity, no gasoline, no jobs, no food.
"We've got the army, we've got the technology, let's just take what we need. The countries which control these resources are just being unreasonable in not wanting to share them with us. So no more Mr. NiceGuy. If they are not going to play fair, we'll show them what 'not playing fair' is all about! Two can play at this game!"

You have just described US foreign policy for the last 60 years! You really think the wealth and waste that are the hallmarks of the American Way are built on your own resources?

 

[Penelope]

The start-date of the Industrial Revolution is often dated as the same year as the American Revolution. Did the textile mills of Great Britain, over the next two centuries, get their cotton from the Highlands of Scotland? (No. From India, from the American South...)

Point taken, TE.

But when British armies, Scottish bagpipes at the lead, were marching across Africa and India during the 19th century to hold onto their colonies (the British Isle's industrial empire), most of America's economic prosperity was in fact generated out of its home-soil. That is, till about the end of the century. Then America became as avaricious (and ruthless) as you Europeans. The legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, and his booster generation.

And here, too, Spanish land-claims were voided. Jim Crow legislation prevented African Americans voting and access to other legal rights in the American South. Treaties with Native American tribes were torn up on technicalities. All to further economic progress.

Greed mixed with might.
As a school teacher of children, I have to sugar-coat it, a little.
But also, TE, I have to tell you. History is complex. A lot more complex than this simple formula.

Even if you could, somehow, disarm the world and spread the wealth around evenly ...
That would solve next to nothing.

Not unless you can also change the character of how people on this Planet habitually interact with each other.
Not unless you can provide people with a new scenario of how to live next to one another ...

In a world without fences.

 

[shawn]

I'm normally a positive and optimistic person, but I have to regard this is an unachievable goal. You'll never find such a story, unless of course your goal is to convert people away from their personal truths. No story will be compatible with all religions, and certainly not all peoples, religious and non-religious.

If it were as easy as finding a story one likes to base a society on, I would choose Atlas Shrugged. But then there evaporates all religions, and even most secular worldviews.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Then we must achieve the impossible , to avoid the unthinkable.

Our greatest danger in our time comes directly from this root.
We have no common ground which goes beyond the basic, I am human so are you.

A thousand are pruning the branches of the problem to one who is digging up its roots. (some old chinese proverb)

We can debate foreign policy, politics and religion etc, but these are the symptoms, the branches.
The solution is found elsewhere.
I am suggesting that a key root of this is in our shared story (for lack of a better word) maybe understanding would work better, as to the 2 elements of it i posed in the OP.

My suggestion is that we need to spend some time working on this foundation, then maybe we can have some bedrock under us instead of sand (which is all we have right now. not very dependable in times of crisis).

Religion has been a dividing force for far too long.
Look at all the denominations of every religion.
Now I think diversity is healthier than a monoculture, but we need diversity that works together rather than one which struggles against itself.

 

[Penelope]

...it really isn't a new religion which we need, but rather a better story.
All religions have come about due to their engineers seeing that the main problem with human society is the lack of a single unifying story, which is essential if one wishes to get people working together...

Shawn,
How do we get people working together?

How did Christianity do it?
How did Islam do it?
How did Buddhism do it?

Religious cults pop up all the time throughout history. Then disappear.
Most cults don't outlive the death of their leader by more than a few years.

Were the great religions just statistical anomalies? Which survived by the luck of the draw?

I suppose a case could be made supporting this proposition. But I think some other force is at work.

& & &

During my last couple years of college, many books made a major impression on me. But one of those still resonates, today, 20-some years later.

The author was Ernest G. Bormann (University of Minnesota, USA).
Bormann is a leading theorist in Communication Theory. His principal claim to fame is "Symbolic Convergence Theory" (SCT).

Bormann's book in question analyzes how the movement against slavery in early 19th century America - the Abolitionist movement - became such an effective political and moral force in its day. (And how its legacy continues to influence the American conscience, still). Sure, much of the reason for this anti-slavery movement's success comes down to grassroots political organizing, fund-raising, etc. But Bormann argues that the principal reason for this particular movement's success was how the Abolitionists talk.
The title of the book is:

The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream (1985).

& & &

Whether social movement or religious movement, it is crucial to get everyone onto the same page. Working off the same playbook.

How did the Abolitionists do it?
It came down to how they talked about the issue of slavery. Both how they talked in-house - amongst fellow members of the movement - and also how they verbally interacted with outsiders whom they were trying to bring into their cause - the greater public.

What was the key to their ultimate success?
It comes down to the nature of Abolitionist rhetoric.

This rhetoric involved an elegant mixture of content and style.

RHETORICAL CONTENT
The content of the rhetoric was rich in visual imagery. The sources for the imagery ranged from the mind-pictures 19th century Americans had of earlier American history, to those mind-pictures of religious and political events in world history which were common knowledge in that day, to those day-to-day images people see at their own town square or at the local harbor or river-landing. In-house, this imagery helped reinforce fellow Abolitionist resolve, and provided members a quick-sketch short-hand language for characterizing issues of the day. Due to the easy familiarity of the imagery, the outsider could easily picture what the Abolitionists were talking about. The Abolitionists surrounded this listener with a familiar world, but one calculated to bend the listener to the Abolition way of thinking.

RHETORICAL STYLE
The style of the rhetoric had some innovations of its own, but it keyed itself away from traditional American oration-styles - as practiced by political men like Daniel Webster - and drew more from Protestant preaching styles originating in pre-Revolution America. The roots of this pulpit-thumping dates from the earliest Puritan days in America. And while some of this involved "fire and brimstone," the richer side of this style of preaching involved speaking directly to each individual in the pews. Every individual was encouraged to work on themselves, to work on their inner-life, to seek personal self-improvement. The more self-aware the person becomes, the more humane this person typically becomes-toward-others. A style of rhetoric was sought that would touch people to their inner core.

These 'visual mind-pictures' which 'touch a person's inner core' targeted listener emotions.

Over time, the Abolitionists adjusted and fine-tuned this means for targeting listener emotions - making this way-of-talking, by degrees, increasingly more effective and powerful as a tool for delivering the Abolitionist message.

And history has proven that this message did, indeed, come to resonate with a large number of Americans. In 1860, America elected as President the nation's most accomplished Abolitionist speaker Abraham Lincoln. The way Lincoln talked about issues influences how Americans, to this very day, talk about Civil Rights (and other social and moral issues).

& & &

Why did Christianity continue to resonate after Jesus died?

Is it simply the 'story' of Jesus?
Or did Jesus the Man, like Lincoln, have a way of talking in strong visual images with an informal talking style which cut deep into an individual person's soul?
A manner of talking (or a rhetoric - 'a technique') which invoked powerful emotions in listeners. A manner of talking to other people that, after Jesus died, his followers adopted as their manner of talking, and this in turn was adopted by new converts as their manner of talking ... up to the present era ... ?

Maybe the key to the Christian message lies within the novel character of its rhetoric ... that the emotion of "the Christian story," in fact, is here - in the manner of talking to individual persons. Not in the "story itself," as powerful as that story is.

Likewise the reason why Islam survived the death of Mohammed. His followers hooked into the content & style of how Mohammed delivered his message. And this is what gave his message its power, and its unique affect upon the lives of people, as Mohammed's way of talking got passed along from generation to generation.

And, similarly, with the followers of the Buddha.

& & &

Whatever this technique might be ...
This technique of talking which puts followers of a cause on the same page with each other, allowing them to work off of the same playbook - there might be a better word for it than the one Bormann uses - to describe the character of this way of communicating, this way-of-talking. But I, actually, like Bormann's word ...

Fantasy.

A successful social movement or successful religion develops an extremely compelling (and unifying) fantasy about how the world works and should work. It does this thru its imagery and speaking style (thru its 'symbolic convergence'). People buy-into the fantasy because it is emotionally compelling.

& & &

Fantasy is to theology what a theory is to science.

Its truth is pragmatic - how effectively this fantasy sells its message.

... a single unifying story, which is essential if one wishes to get people working together.

Shawn,

If Ernest Bormann is correct ...

"To get people working together" ...
The one perfect story is probably not what you should want.
A story is an on-going project.

What you should want is the fantasy which gestates that story.
That is what is going to get people working together.

& & &

And ...
A pretty good place to start might be the Abolitionist's fantasy ...
Visual mind-pictures which ... touch a person's inner core.

 

[Penelope]

shawn

Last week I attempted to post a Reply here, a long and thoughtful Reply. At first it was rejected due to being 110 characters too long. After I adjusted that, with plenty of margin for error, I hit post. The post never appeared.

I got to thinking, in the interim, and realized ...
Just as you splintered off from TealLeaf's thread
Designing a New Religion
- redefining the same issue in a new manner
- I, too, am redefining your issue on new terms.

So I started a new thread, here ...

Faith as an emotionally powerful fantasy = visual mind-pictures which touch a person's inner core? ...

Hope you will take a look.

Penelope

 

[iBrian]

After I adjusted that, with plenty of margin for error, I hit post. The post never appeared.

Apologies for that - for some reason it set off the anti-spam script - should be showing now.

 

[nativeastral]

Then we must achieve the impossible , to avoid the unthinkable.

Our greatest danger in our time comes directly from this root.
We have no common ground which goes beyond the basic, I am human so are you.

A thousand are pruning the branches of the problem to one who is digging up its roots. (some old chinese proverb)

We can debate foreign policy, politics and religion etc, but these are the symptoms, the branches.
The solution is found elsewhere.
I am suggesting that a key root of this is in our shared story (for lack of a better word) maybe understanding would work better, as to the 2 elements of it i posed in the OP.

My suggestion is that we need to spend some time working on this foundation, then maybe we can have some bedrock under us instead of sand (which is all we have right now. not very dependable in times of crisis).

Religion has been a dividing force for far too long.
Look at all the denominations of every religion.
Now I think diversity is healthier than a monoculture, but we need diversity that works together rather than one which struggles against itself.

only read joseph campbells quote at the beginning but am pasting this [from spiral dynamics thread] so l can read it later!

http://www.wakingtheglobalheart.com/images/WTGH_SampleChapter.pdf