Some questions for me, and anyone else who likes to express an opinion.
1) It’s virtually certain that other civilisations on other worlds inhabit this galaxy and all the other millions of galaxies in the universe. We hear nothing in Christian or other religious teaching that prepares us for contact with these other civilisations. Has Jesus visited them? Are some of them more advanced than us spiritually, or technologically? Are some less advanced? Probably both. Fundamentalist Christians (and Muslims for that matter) have shown no sign that they have given consideration to how things stand with other civilisations on other worlds vis-à-vis organised religion, e.g. in eschatological matters. I think about this and what a dialogue might be like between a fundamentalist Christian and a visitor from, say, a much more advanced civilisation, spiritually speaking.
2) In the world of Master/slave and Dominant/submissive, how many submissives feel that their journey is a spiritual one?
3) Who made/is making this universe? Possibilities:
a) God the ultimate Higher Power, wielding his infinite might.
b) An incompetent demiurge, wielding his somewhat limited and imperfect powers
c) Humanity, simply using our imagination. If we stop imagining it, it will vanish.
My preference is for the third possibility. I do not admit the blind chance hypothesis, that is altogether too unlikely, not to say impossible.
4) A good education is expensive. Even the best teachers, who provide this education, are not paid enough to enable them to send their children to the best schools (unless they are given a big discount). There is something paradoxical about this situation. So how is a good education to be made available to all who want it?
5) “Energy therapies” ( Spiritual healing, TFT, EFT, Chi gong etc) can work without any consideration of distance, i.e. the therapist can be any distance from the client and it makes no difference, so long as there is some form of “connection” between the two – a photo, a piece of hair, or even an emotional connection of some sort. It follows that the dimension in which these therapies work is not our four-dimensional space-time, but something different. We have to stretch our minds considerably to get them to accommodate this idea.
6) There are people living on this Earth who do not eat, and some do not even drink. Well documented evidence for this exists, and there seem to be many private individuals who do not eat but do not want to publicise this, for obvious reasons. What would happen if a very large number of people, say fifty per cent of the world’s population, learned how to do without food?
7) Astrology has a large following around the world. Superstition? If not, how exactly does the influence of the planets make itself felt on us humans?
8) Why do religious fundamentalists want everyone else to join them? My guess is – insecurity. Subconsciously they know their dogma has a weak foundation, even though it gives them a reason to feel secure, so they seek safety in numbers.
9) Evolution or creationism? My take is that evolution exists – species do evolve; but there are too many instance of behaviour which simply cannot be explained by survival of the fittest: behaviour which cannot be learned gradually, but has to be got right first time. On the other hand, there is simply too much evidence against the idea that the biblical account of creation (itself inconsistent) is historically true. Intelligent design? This brings us back to my third question.
10) Was Jesus an historical figure? I am no biblical scholar, but I go for the idea that his story is a creation of Jewish Gnostics, for spiritual teaching purposes, and through historical accident as much as through power-seeking machinations, it became accepted as historical truth.
11) How did we humans get here? And how did civilisations arise, so suddenly and complete? I like Zechariah Sitchin’s views on this, well backed up by scholarly translations of ancient tablets and other evidence. We are descended from apes, but only as a result of genetic engineering by people from another planet with advanced knowledge and skills. They taught us civilisation: agriculture, kingship, laws, pottery, metallurgy. One snag is – where and what is that other planet?
1) Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims (or any other Fundamentalists) can't deal with other human beings, let alone extra-terrestials.
ReplyDelete3) I like (c) too.
4) In the UK the answer is simple: return to the old Grammar School system so that a good state education is available to those who want it.
8) Agreed.
11) I like the theory that humans went through a semi-aquatic period. I don't think it can be regarded as scientific fact, but it's a nice idea.
ed, that's an interesting site you have given a link to. I haven't read it all but probably will over the next week or so. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMalcolm, I'll take a different approach. I've looked at your questions and, to try and tackle them one by one would be the work of hours and hours of writing. However, I feel strongly that we are connected to the universe in a very fundamental way. Our physics hints at this when we get out into the most esoteric realms as does our mathematics. Mystics have always understood it. I don't believe that there is some discrete "creator" so much as that we all participate in the creating with our energy and with our minds and with our imaginings and with what we think of as our spirits. And by "all" I do mean "all" -- stars and starfish and the rest of us too... For me, prayer is not so much a sort of petitioning as a way of "evolving" the creation to the next level -- a way of putting energy into the positive movement of creation. I don't explain it all very well I'm afraid. Much of that is rooted in where I've traveled spiritually in my lifetime: Quakerism, Native spiritualities, wiccan studies, mysticism, and a fair amount of math and science theory at the far edge where it gets poetic... Anyway, given that foundation, perhaps some of your other questions get easier to answer: M/s is, of course, about a spiritual path -- everything is. Fundamentalism is not so much insecure as just limited in its vision and imagination, so of course the rest of us scare them. They are blinkered and blind and blindness can be scary if no one has taught you to navigate in the world. There may be things we can't or haven't explained. I'm sometimes skeptical (well actually often -- the freak show at the carnival DID take advantage of the gullible after all), but that's OK. I don't have to buy it all for it to still be there. There are plenty of paths.
ReplyDeleteswan
sue, I like your idea that it's not only humans that are creating the world, but all of life.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me to consider just how a starfish sees the world. Surely not just as we see it, even if we are under water? Analogous to the problem, do you see the colour yellow the same as I do? Does that question even make sense?
Yes, all paths are spiritual ones; but my question was, how many submissives see their path that way?
gabby, of course my answers to such questions are still being formed, too. I sincerely hope I will learn more about such things as I get older, in which case my answers, such as they are, will change. I would have liked to know what your thoughts are now!