Thursday, July 24, 2008

Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "I suspect most atheists have not bothered to separate the teachings of Jesus the man, from the crap grafted on by John and Paul to create Christ Jesus the savior.

Thomas Jefferson has done this for us in The Jefferson Bible. He littered the floor of the President's office with trash from the bible created by Paul and others, until he had distilled the essence of Jesus from the rest of the bible. I claim Jefferson as the first Jesuist, he certainly was an atheist, (politically a Deist) and wanted to salvage something from Christianity, again for political reasons, to keep the Black Regiment of New England preachers quiet(er.) Whether he succeeded politically or not, The Jefferson Bible is a concise and readable way to discover the ministry of Jesus."

Note: This and related posts have been consolidated on Thinking on the Blue Roads

Footnote the (2011) Wiki article of the same name was simply a ripoff of the name to simplify Jesusism which is what his article is about. But what do you expect from Wiki.

Theistic Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "Jesuism is really designed for Christians who, having lost faith in Paul's Christ have moved back to the Gospels for meaning and morality. Once they get comfortable without a savior many of them find they don't need God either. Particularly the God of the OT and Paul who was more worried about idol worship than people treating each other right. They can salvage most of their 'Jesus loves me' conditioning with Jesus as exemplar rather than God, and even worship in their same church.

You will hear them talking about Jesus ministering to the poor, the prostitutes, the gays, the fishermen, and other common people. You will also hear them focusing their religion down to the Second Great Commandment
Quote:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
with the gloss of Matt 25:40
Quote:
As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

It is the teaching of radical respect for all people which separates Jesus from all of the religious teachers of his time, including Paul by the way. Until Jesus, religion was all about us vs them, 'We are the world's sweet chosen few, the rest of you be damned.' After Jesus it was more of the same. Fortunately Paul hijacked his charisma and caused the preservation of the synoptics to document it, incidentally preserving the message of radical respect to be rediscovered by those who can relate to it.

Some might call them Synoptic Christians since for them the NT stops before John. But they believe Jesus is the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, who was sent to earth to teach the humanist message of Love your neighbors, all of them, even the Samaritans, respect the poor, the meek, the thieves, the whores and even the people who hate you. In short how to live this life. Many of them take the next step and don't worry about an afterlife believing that how they live this life is all that matters to God.

I might agree that there is little of Christ in their beliefs but they call themselves Christians for traditional reasons, as many of them are found in traditional Christian Churches. Some call themselves Progressive Christians, and if I were an arrogant asshole telling people what they believe I would call them theist Jesuists. I am not, so I call them Christians.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Raising Atheists.

To atheists who had Christian parents - Beliefnet Forums: "One of the things my parents did to make it impossible to accept Christianity was to encourage me to read the bible. All of it. From Gen 1:1 to Rev 22:21.

I came home with some stories from Bible School, (a summer camp they thought would amuse me) and they asked where did that come from?
The Bible, said I.
But where in the Bible? they asked.
I dunno.
Find out."

Jesuism

Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "Jesuism in the West is an atheistic worldview based on the teachings of Jesus as documented in the Gospels including the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels of Thomas and Judas. A Jesuist rejects the supernatural accretions to the stories about Jesus as mnemonic and marketing devices typical of the age, and rejects all theistic references including self-references by Jesus as metaphorical devices to communicate with the prevailing Jewish and Pagan religions.

To understand Jesuism one must understand the concept of radical respect for all people taught by Jesus in the Beatitudes, the Good Samaritan, the Adulteress, and indeed in all the stories involving Jesus directly. While Jesus believed in the eventual judgment by his God to help formulate and sell the radical concept that all people are to be accepted as brothers and sisters, the Jesuist will accept this as part of the religious culture Jesus dedicated his life to changing. Jesus was a Jew who believed in the Abrahamic God concept, but his rebellion was as much against his own God as the religion of the Jews he was immersed in.

The Jefferson Bible is a useful condensation of the traditional teachings of Jesus and could be considered the Holy Book of the Jesuist. And part of the traditional Unitarian “Affirmation”

Unitarians believe in
…the brotherhood of man
The leadership of Jesus...

The Sound of Rain

Defend Yourself - Page 2 - Beliefnet Forums: "The sound of rain needs no translation. - Roshi Morimoto"

Chiyo is an ex-Christian Buddhist

Monday, July 21, 2008

Changing Christianity

what do you think about being homosexual and being a christian? - Beliefnet Forums: "I think the movement we see here among some Catholic Parishes and in other Christian denominations toward the Gospels and the Two Great Commandments is a necessary and sufficient condition for the revitalization of Christianity as path to God for many people. I think Christianity has moved farther than you think in this direction, but if you think about it it is almost by definition a quiet movement. Loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek doesn't generate a lot of controversy, but does make a huge difference in the feeling of the community and the acceptance of the presence of God."

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Legacy continued

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums: "I learned long ago that you cannot pray your way to immortality, and you can't wish it either. Either I have done my job right and the proud thoughts will be carried on by those who follow, and my species will be a little better off for my being here and posting on the net, and guiding my children and grandchildren and my family. They are already going beyond my ability to contribute and this is as it should be. I don't give up, I may yet have something to contribute, but I am a realist, in some areas I don't even try. An idea comes up I can't wrap my mind around and I 'discuss it with my pillow.' and choose the oblivion of sleep. As more and more things come up I can't wrap my mind around, I will follow the family tradition of choosing not to live any longer. Quite confident that as I have incorporated all of their proud thoughts into my space, those that follow will do the same. Not only for me but for those whose proud thoughts came before mine and enabled them."

Bible based religions dying out?

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "The God as depicted in the Bible has a few useful attributes, dealing with tribal loyalties, but taken as a whole the God depicted in the Bible is totally dysfunctional for any modern society as is being played out in many countries. The God of the Bible is causing several sects and one major religion to suicide as a society. It won't be quick or pretty but the writing is on the wall."

Friday, July 18, 2008

Morality without God

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "The problem with this whole line of thinking is that with God whether it is the Old Testament God of Abraham, or the New Testament God of Paul, The moral laws given by God are contrary to any reasonable formula for living in a pluralistic society....
Thank you I will struggle along with a social foundation for separating out good from evil that takes into account the inherent worth and dignity of all people of both genders, regardless of the God they worship, where they come from, and the color of their skin.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Fundie Atheists

What if you are wrong? - Beliefnet Forums: "What is it with the term fundie, anyway? Everybody seems to be offended as if it is a terrible insult.

I used the term for a common attitude on this board which is the refusal to accept the testimony of theists that the experience of God changed their behavior in observable ways as evidence for the existence of God.

To take an extreme example Paul Hill maintained through his execution for murder that God instructed him to save babies by killing a doctor that was aborting fetuses. The fundie atheist will say that God had nothing to do with this, that the man was insane, filled with religious fervor, deluded, or anything but that God actually told him to do it and therefore must have existed at least for Paul Hill. Personally, I think the simplest, most efficient explanation of Paul Hill's behavior is that an entity separate from Paul Hill exerted a powerful influence on him to cause his behavior, that might as well be called God just as Paul Hill said it was.

Is God going to affect me? No, I am an atheist. I do not accept God in my space. But do I believe God exists? For Paul Hill certainly. For my other friends who experience God? Of course. I will even pray for them. Hey, it is their God, Hesh listens to prayers, why not? No skin off my nose.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Atheism is

A Cool Utterance - Beliefnet Forums: "Being alive in a society that includes other people, involves interacting with them, finding a reason to do so, and finding meaning, that is stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain, for those interactions. This is all done with the awareness that life may end at any time and will end eventually.

Atheism is the process of developing solutions to these issues that do not involve a little tinhorn in the fancy dress in an overdecorated balcony or a supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid. A lack of belief in God, gods, or fairies is absolutely irrelevant to my atheism. My atheism is living a rich, full, meaningful life for as long as I can, and leaving a rich, full, meaningful legacy for those that follow. The fact that God is nowhere to be found is absolutely meaningless."

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Living in the space between birth and death.

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums:

"From a different part of Legacy, from John Dobbs:
Quote:
REMINDER
The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
matters of great importance.


I have no problem with the fact that the world began on the day that I was born. From my predecessors, alive and dead, I was left a rich legacy of a valuable space, filled with beautiful music and wonderful people. Many of of those wonderful people are dead, some long dead, but I can still appreciate their art and thinking from their legacies. Each day I look forward to the exciting challenge of incorporating as much as possible into my space. I eagerly do what I can to make the space even more valuable. Then, with as much love as possible I pass it on to those who will pay it forward.

I have no problem with the fact that, again from
Quote:
REMINDER
...there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.

If I have lived my life well, and loved enough, there will be many around willing and able to deal with those urgencies."

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Creating Gods

Darwinists for Jesus - Beliefnet Forums: "humans have been creating gods since the beginning of being sapient. Some of the earliest prehistoric figurines were fertility goddesses. Gods are useful for Kings and Shamans to make the buck stop somewhere up there instead of here where it belongs. But be that as it may, I was created from an extraordinarily long line of individuals doing their best to survive and pass on their genetic and recently memetic heritage. ...We are much too busy surviving and doing our best to pass on our genetic and memetic heritage so that those that follow us will have a better and more intellectually exciting world to live in."

Friday, July 4, 2008

The source of meaning.

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums: "My meaning comes from a single, observable universe that I occupy temporarily, and affect in a way that those important to me will have a slightly better place to occupy temporarily to affect for those that follow. I am a way point in an extraordinarily long sequence of individuals occupying their space temporarily leaving a legacy of something a little better for their successors. There were failures along the way, and perhaps I will be another, but my meaning comes from insuring that it isn't so. I can only do so much and must trust my successors to carry on when I am no longer able to do so, and I will die, if not willingly, with the confidence that I have given them the valuable and useful space to do so."

Referent for stimulated God response.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

Referent for stimulated God response.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

Soruce of stimulated God responses.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "The brain does not exist in a vacuum. The brain operates by electromagnetic and chemical stimulation, normally naturally occurring. A muscle twitches, the nerve impulse is transmitted to the brain, is sorted out and directed to the appropriate areas of the brain to generate a useful response.

A natural response can be generated artificially by chemical or electromagnetic stimulation of the appropriate areas of the brain. This is routing neuroscience. Stimulate the pleasure centers and you get a reflection of previous pleasure responses. But the previous pleasure responses are critical. I don't think anyone argues that the stimulated pleasure response is imaginary in the sense that it arises without a previous history of similar natural responses.

So my question for you is what is the source of the previous history of religious experiences that is stimulated by the electromagnetic signals or naturally overstimulated by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? A related question is what is source of the electromagnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes in the few hundred million ordinary believers without TLE who have experienced the presence of God? As far as I know EM stimulation was extremely uncommon prior to the 20th century and a lot of people claimed to know God back then."

An atheist finds God quite naturally.

God Helmets OBEs Illusions and a Cosmic Presence. - Beliefnet Forums: "Because of my fascination with the Mass, I have frequently joined good friends who were devout Catholics to their worship services. As you may know I suspend disbelief from the time I leave home, and try to participate as a Catholic in the service. I stay closely in emotional contact with my friend and try to mimic herm responses to better understand what it is that hesh is experiencing. My friends are in agreement that once they enter the church and genuflect, they feel they are in the presence of God. So I tried it. Like Dawkins I don't have much in the way of religious experiences to work with, but on a few occasions I have been able to mirror my friends feeling of the presence of an other. I don't have a God referent in my temporal lobes, so the presence was undefined, but seemed to be identifiable as separate from the others in the church."

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Looking at Yesterday's Genes for Tomorrow's Cures: Scientific American

Looking at Yesterday's Genes for Tomorrow's Cures: Scientific American: "And Ivics, who in 1997 reanimated another ancient transposon that he dubbed Sleeping Beauty, showed last year that he could control its insertion site by directing it to specific target sequences. “Even if this technology is not mature enough yet for clinical use, the proof of concept has been done,” he says. Studying how the Harbinger3_DR transposon naturally targets specific sequences may also reveal some useful new techniques."

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

How do you think about death?

Death - Beliefnet Forums:
To paraphrase Forrest Church, who by the way, is a theist, death is the reason many of us try to live a life that will be worth dying for. Most atheists have come to terms with the near certainty that death is the recycling of the body and the recycling of The proud thoughts and the humble things that were important to the deceased.

In the extremely unlikely event that there is some continuity after death, it will be a natural result of being alive. The only possible scenario that I can conceive of is that the continuation, spirit if you will, will be able to interact with all the other deceased spirits that were important prior to death.

As noted the probability of this is so close to nil that I had better enjoy The proud thoughts and the humble things of the legacy of all that have preceded me and enabled the richness of my living. I devote most of my effort to contributing to and enriching that legacy, that those that follow me may have even more to work with and recycle."