Category: Buddhism
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The Non-Tribal Religion of the Future?
I stopped being a Christian minister forty years ago, and don’t now attend any church, but I’d gladly have listened to the late Bishop John Shelby Spong. And if I were to have my time over again, this is along the lines of what I’d want to say, not that it might be welcomed. Bishop […]
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Heart on (heretical) Sleeve
After sharing some thoughts with a friend, I want to try to put into words what ‘religion’ means to me. It’ll make sense to some, though not perhaps to all. Joseph Campbell describes the “game of belief” that leads to a “divine seizure”, his use of the word ‘game’ (as in Wittgenstein’s philosophy) not meaning […]
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Unconditional Love (i)
There was a time when I was a conservative evangelical minister, fervently believing in the complete historicity and literal factuality of the Gospels, and accepting therefore the historical, traditional, orthodox, Christian interpretation of them. I don’t regret that, because it means that I know about this way of seeing things – I’ve been there – […]
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“God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth” ..
I’m continuing to ask myself, what is Christianity? A previous post saw it as being like the typical supermarket set of shelves, with many different options on offer. Let’s narrow things down, however, to a traditional, historical, generic outline of what Christianity has said it’s about. Let’s consider the 4th century CE Apostles’ Creed, which […]
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A Credo and a Plea …
While contemplating my current series of posts on Genesis, I felt the need to remind myself, (and explain to any interested reader), where I’m coming from, and what is one key source to which I keep returning. Here’s an edited quote from the Prologue to Volume One of “The Masks of God” by Joseph Campbell. […]
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My Religious Paradigm (1) Is there a God?
At the beginning of this new year, and following on from my previous posts, I’m asking myself, having once been a preacher, what my current religious paradigm is. What do I think and feel I can reasonably and credibly believe? When people say, “there is a God”, or “there isn’t a God”, it’s clear to […]
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2022
THIS would be a good “fingerprint” for all of us to ‘make our mark’ with on the year ahead – whether religious or non-religious …..
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The Nativity Stories (v) Unconditional Love
I’ve been suggesting that the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are two different stories that invite us, while enjoying what’s on the surface, to think a little more deeply. Some people might imagine that because I don’t regard these stories as historical, their meaningfulness for me must be sadly impoverished, but not so ! […]
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Common Sense? I
Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) is famous, or infamous, for arguing that esse est percipi – “to be is to be perceived”. What we humans experience as material objects exist solely in our perceptions of them. In other words, there are no material objects as such, but only minds (human and divine) containing mental ‘representations’. Hence […]
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