Tag: Religion
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Let’s get ‘Real’
Assuming we’re not hostile to Science for religious or other reasons, we really ought to take on board some of its newest findings, however strange or disturbing some of them might seem to be, especially if we’re at all interested in being ‘real’. Imagine you’re sitting at a table. It has a flat top, and […]
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Mahler and Life and Death
I haven’t blogged for a good few days because I’ve been too ‘re-absorbed’ in the music of one of my three favourite composers, Gustav Mahler, and now I’d like to write something about Mahler and death. I hope you haven’t fled away from that last word, because it’ll catch up with you regardless so, if […]
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Honest to God?
It seems to me that if we’re to be ‘honest to God’, (understood as being, in some way, the originator and sustainer of all that is), we must face the challenge presented by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who cuts to the chase in an impressively concise way (unusual for a philosopher, some might say). “That […]
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Myth – A Personal View
Let’s try to return to basics (so I’m not writing anything new). One of myth’s functions was enabling people to find meaning in, and feel comfortable with, the cosmos. A myth was a story that tried to make sense of life as it was experienced, day by day. People wondered how and why they existed, […]
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Myth, Bible, Religion (ii)
In thinking about myth, I wrote last time about the sometimes limited ability of words to fully describe. This, of course, doesn’t hinder words from evoking the indescribable. A favourite example comes from William Wordsworth – That’s an eight line, non-description of what is intangible, but it’s also a matchless evocation of what Paul Tillich […]
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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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So what do I now believe in?
As a blogger, often about ‘matters religious’, I’m prompted to ask myself, what does religion now mean for me? Its most significant meaning is no longer an institutional one. I was once the minister of a church with several hundred attenders. Having a ‘way with words’, spoken as well as written, I enjoyed the experience […]
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My Religious Paradigm (3) The final truth?
In this series, I’m asking myself, a former preacher, what my current religious ‘paradigm’ is, meaning, what do I think, and feel, I can reasonably and credibly believe? So far, I’ve argued that the existence of an infinite and eternal God, by definition, ought not to be presented as a ‘fact’, but simply a ‘belief’, […]
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My Religious Paradigm (2) The sacred books
Continuing this series, I’m asking myself, having been a preacher, what my current religious ‘paradigm’ is, by which I mean, what do I think, and feel, I can reasonably and credibly believe? Religious literature is exactly that and, in my view, must be subject to the same historical and critical scrutiny as all other kinds […]
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