Theological Opinions , PART II

[Elfhelm]

Ah. It would be prejudice if I hadn't read Out if the Silent Planet. Now it's post-judice.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I'm starting to read a lot of poetry; I'm currently working my way through all of Oscar Wilde's. I should read Whitman, too...eventually...

[Elfhelm]

This week it's the Bhagavad Gita for me. Peace amidst a violent world.

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

I have estimated that if I read one book a week and I live to an average age, I can only read about 1,500 more books before I die. I already regret the second last book I read as a vast waste of time (even though I'm playing devil's advocate on it's thread).

My list of must-read books begins with the scripture of the world's religions and then moves to philosophers. So...

The Tao Te King
The Analects of Confucious
The Dhamapada
The Lotus Sutra
The New Testament (Jerusalem Bible translation)
The writings of Baha'ulah

then

Plato's Republic
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Boethius Consolation of Philosophy
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Judgement
Nietsche Beyond Good and Evil
Marx Capital

then
Whitman Leaves of Grass
Pound Cantos
Williams Paterson
H.D. Trilogy
Zukofsky "A"
Olson Maximus
Enslin Ranger

all will be read before I read that catechism again or anything by CS Lewis ever again!

The Tao Te Ching is quite short and readable; make sure you get a good translation.

Same with the "Analects"; get either a heavily annotated version or a reference book to go with; by itself it can be very confusing

"Capital"- has anybody ever actually finished that? Not sure it's worth the bother; you'd probably have to go through Hegel studies first...

[Elfhelm]

The Tao te King... I read that an older version was discovered ten years ago that had some characters different than the version that was accepted through most of the last century. I put a book about that on my Amazon wishlist.

Confucious... there is a teacher in Boston who has written extensively on Neo-Confucianism. He's trying to show that Humanism and Science can be part of a modern view of the writings of Confucious. But as ever, I want to get my own grasp of the writings before "poisoning the well" with other peoples' personal or even traditional interpretations.

Regarding that final list, it is a list of (mostly) 20th century American Epic Poetry. Even at its worst (Pound's fascism, for instance) it is still the greatest poetry written in the 20th century. Amazingly, most of it is unknown. No doubt our great-great-grandchildren will turn some of them into religions. Hopefully they'll choose the one by H.D.

[Arien the Maia]

This is semi-OT but, I was having a conversation with my Dad the other day and he was wondering how people could belive in evolution when the human body is SOOO complex. (we were discussing my Anatomy notes and f.y.i. he's a Seventh Day Adventist Christian). at any rate, I was wondering what religious and non religious people think about that. I myself am a practicing Roman Catholic and I'm not sure if I believe in the literal 7 day Creation or true Evolution. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. The one thing I do belive is that God started it all and God will end it all. any thoughts?

Edited for grammatical errors

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I think either special creation or evolution can be valid Christian views, as long as one understands always that God is the first cause, and He is acting with final cause in mind.

[inked]

69. The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles….It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).

70. With respect to the immediate creation of the human soul, Catholic theology affirms that particular actions of God bring about effects that transcend the capacity of created causes acting according to their natures. The appeal to divine causality to account for genuinely causal as distinct from merely explanatory gaps does not insert divine agency to fill in the “gaps” in human scientific understanding (thus giving rise to the so-called “God of the gaps”). The structures of the world can be seen as open to non-disruptive divine action in directly causing events in the world. Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention. Acting indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, God prepared the way for what Pope John Paul II has called “an ontological leap…the moment of transition to the spiritual.” While science can study these causal chains, it falls to theology to locate this account of the special creation of the human soul within the overarching plan of the triune God to share the communion of trinitarian life with human persons who are created out of nothing in the image and likeness of God, and who, in his name and according to his plan, exercise a creative stewardship and sovereignty over the physical universe.

edit: link http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1732#comments

It seems a very good statement. Takes a little reading and thinking through.

[Arien the Maia]

thanks guys I'll check out that link Inked.

[inked]

This is a lengthy read about why one gay guy became a Catholic:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../1645351/posts

Interesting. That forgiveness thing doesn't just apply to sexual sins, by the way, of either homo- or hetero-varieties. There are 6 other deadly sins to consider.

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Arien the Maia

This is semi-OT but, I was having a conversation with my Dad the other day and he was wondering how people could belive in evolution when the human body is SOOO complex. (we were discussing my Anatomy notes and f.y.i. he's a Seventh Day Adventist Christian). at any rate, I was wondering what religious and non religious people think about that. I myself am a practicing Roman Catholic and I'm not sure if I believe in the literal 7 day Creation or true Evolution. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. The one thing I do belive is that God started it all and God will end it all. any thoughts?

Yes.

Go to the Evolution thread, and post there- and hold on to your hat

[inked]

Atheism on the Rocks- http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articl...ollAtheism.php
Regis Nicoll
No endorsement implied.

Is God Dead - or Is Godlessness?

"At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream." (Robert Jastrow, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute)

It has been less than forty years since Time magazine asked the question, "Is God Dead?" Now the question some are asking is, "Is atheism dying?"

While atheism enjoys wide acceptance in secular Europe and the scientific community at large (including 93 percent of the National Academy of Science membership), theism is embraced by almost 90 percent of Americans and is making sustained gains in the developing world. And with birthrates in the world's theistic communities outpacing those in secular ones, it appears that atheism is destined to become a victim of its own doctrine of natural selection.

Added to those woes is news that a bastion of atheism is losing its faith--or at least allegiance. According to Science & Theology News, the Council for Secular Humanism has begun to distance itself from atheism, insisting that atheism is only a subset of humanist values.

Although the Humanist Manifesto still espouses the atheistic worldview of naturalism, its anti-God statements have softened. For example, comparing the latest version of the Manifesto (2003) with the 1933 original, the open denials of theism and deism have been replaced by the dismissal of what it terms "supernaturalism."

By all appearances, atheism seems poised for extinction in the "survival of the fittest." But how did it come to this?

Read the entire article on the Breakpoint website (new window will open).


http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2251

[afro-elf]

Ancient Greek Religion question?

Were there priest AND priestess of Artemis and Athena?

I know there were worshippers of both.

And did their priest/ priestess have to be chaste as their patron deity?

[afro-elf]

I found these:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cl135/S...iestesses.html

Age was a cnsideration for the priestess of Athena at Athens; she had to be a mature woman who was beyond adesire for conjugal relationships. Also, sexual experience or lack of it were a noteworthy feature for some priestesses. For example, Hera required a married female as her sacerdotal servant; while Artemis demanded a virgin priestess


http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhod...priestess.html

The position of priestess was the only public office that could be held by a woman. Priestesses were expected to live a life of celibacy and dedicate themselves to the devotion of a particular deity. Prominent among these was the priestess of Athena Polias, the city's patron deity.



Anything else?

[The Gaffer]

Insurance company withdraws cover for costs of raising Christ after immaculate conception.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5105946.stm?ls

Shame, really.

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by inked

Atheism on the Rocks- http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articl...ollAtheism.php
Regis Nicoll
No endorsement implied.

Is God Dead - or Is Godlessness?

"At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream." (Robert Jastrow, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute)

It has been less than forty years since Time magazine asked the question, "Is God Dead?" Now the question some are asking is, "Is atheism dying?"

While atheism enjoys wide acceptance in secular Europe and the scientific community at large (including 93 percent of the National Academy of Science membership), theism is embraced by almost 90 percent of Americans and is making sustained gains in the developing world. And with birthrates in the world's theistic communities outpacing those in secular ones, it appears that atheism is destined to become a victim of its own doctrine of natural selection.

Added to those woes is news that a bastion of atheism is losing its faith--or at least allegiance. According to Science & Theology News, the Council for Secular Humanism has begun to distance itself from atheism, insisting that atheism is only a subset of humanist values.

Although the Humanist Manifesto still espouses the atheistic worldview of naturalism, its anti-God statements have softened. For example, comparing the latest version of the Manifesto (2003) with the 1933 original, the open denials of theism and deism have been replaced by the dismissal of what it terms "supernaturalism."

By all appearances, atheism seems poised for extinction in the "survival of the fittest." But how did it come to this?

Read the entire article on the Breakpoint website (new window will open).


http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2251

The concept of atheism will always exist for the simple reason that every thesis implies its antithesis. It is true that Humanists in general no longer dismiss the idea of God, but we still do not accept Faith as proof of anything. I believe panentheism is about the most you'll get from a Humanist, however.

As for the "mysteries of creation", the concept of "creation" implies as creator. It still hasn't been proven that a creation occured. True, one might kick a stone and state that the existence of the stone implies that it was created. But if you're going to use physical reality for proof of something, it could just as well be used to prove that the universe always existed.

Or

The universe is constantly in a state of creation/destruction and in physical reality only the present exists. The past is a construct of the perceiving mind. So a creation in the past is obviously so interlaced with the opinions and desires of the observer that any statement whatsoever concerning this possibility is automatically mythical.

[Elfhelm]

I meant "pantheism" not "panentheism". Big difference. Sorry.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Insurance company withdraws cover for costs of raising Christ after immaculate conception.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5105946.stm?ls

Shame, really.

Please note: Immaculate Conception refers to preservation of the Blessed Virgin Mary from all stain of original sin at conception, not to the Virgin Birth of Christ.

[Rían]

I thought it was when you took a shower right before having sex ...

[Elfhelm]

Or if I made up my mind about a theological point without really giving it enough thought, while in the tub, it would be ... an immaculate preconception?