Post by Admin on Nov 29, 2018 2:05:47 GMT
So finishing up with John Shelby Spong's "Eternal LIfe: A New Vision" 2009
page 119ff
"
We come now to the critical turning point in our quest. Why does it matter whether or not traditional religion fades and the external God of traditional religion dies? It matters because we would once more be alone facing realities that threaten us deeply. It matters because we have invested in this deity our sense of purpose, our sense of meaning and our hopes for eternal life. All of these things die if this God dies, or at least that is the common wisdom. When these issues are stated outside their usual "stained-glass" setting, their strangeness becomes apparent. It becomes clear that we believe these things not because we are convinced that they are true, but because we have a deep need for them to be true. We do not recognize that our need for something to be true does not affect what is; it only manifests our willingness to be delusional. In order to support and to shore up our believing, we human beings have tended to resist every new insight into how the world operates over the last five hundred years or so, if it was perceived as challenging our religious presuppositions.
"
page 190ff
"
My world, my life and my religion were all products of that history. My small family was deeply unstable, marked by alcoholism, lack of education, early death and poverty. Religion that focuses on security thrives in such a setting. I knew no one in my upbringing who was not religious; indeed, I knew no one until I was well into my school years who was not both evangelical and Protestant.
"
p205ff
"
The time has come to state my conclusions clearly. The attempt to place the issue of eternal life into a new context has been accomplished. I have walked through religion as teh arena in which the human family has long sought answeres. I have dismissed religion's two primary premises: first, that God is other, a supernatural being who can do for me that whichI cannot do for myself, a formulation that has necessitated my gaining God's favor; and second, that self-conscious human life is alienated from the supernatural being and that overcoming this alienation with some form of atonement is necessary. In these two premises we, both as individuals and as a species, invested our hope that life had ultimate meaing, clear purpose and the possiblity of eternity. These premises, however, could not be sustained as our knowledge expanded. The alternatives for human life were stark. We could refuse to admit that the premises underlying religious systems were fatally flawed and live in denial. That pathway is always present in the world of religion. Failing that, we could acknowledge that religion has always been delusional, more about a search for secuity than a search for truth, and thus be willing to give it up, face the consequences and deal with the fact that we are no more than accidental creatures in the an accidental universe. We then must enter the religionless world of a new humanity. That is when we are forced to conclude that purpose is what we give to life, meaning is what we invest in life and the hpe of something beyond the grave is only the pious dream of the childhood of our humanity. Many regard these working hypotheses as the only real alternative to the mindless, irrational denials contained in fundamentalism.
I have south to sketch out a new possibility.
.
.
.
"
(to know more you'll have to read the book for yourself)
page 119ff
"
We come now to the critical turning point in our quest. Why does it matter whether or not traditional religion fades and the external God of traditional religion dies? It matters because we would once more be alone facing realities that threaten us deeply. It matters because we have invested in this deity our sense of purpose, our sense of meaning and our hopes for eternal life. All of these things die if this God dies, or at least that is the common wisdom. When these issues are stated outside their usual "stained-glass" setting, their strangeness becomes apparent. It becomes clear that we believe these things not because we are convinced that they are true, but because we have a deep need for them to be true. We do not recognize that our need for something to be true does not affect what is; it only manifests our willingness to be delusional. In order to support and to shore up our believing, we human beings have tended to resist every new insight into how the world operates over the last five hundred years or so, if it was perceived as challenging our religious presuppositions.
"
page 190ff
"
My world, my life and my religion were all products of that history. My small family was deeply unstable, marked by alcoholism, lack of education, early death and poverty. Religion that focuses on security thrives in such a setting. I knew no one in my upbringing who was not religious; indeed, I knew no one until I was well into my school years who was not both evangelical and Protestant.
"
p205ff
"
The time has come to state my conclusions clearly. The attempt to place the issue of eternal life into a new context has been accomplished. I have walked through religion as teh arena in which the human family has long sought answeres. I have dismissed religion's two primary premises: first, that God is other, a supernatural being who can do for me that whichI cannot do for myself, a formulation that has necessitated my gaining God's favor; and second, that self-conscious human life is alienated from the supernatural being and that overcoming this alienation with some form of atonement is necessary. In these two premises we, both as individuals and as a species, invested our hope that life had ultimate meaing, clear purpose and the possiblity of eternity. These premises, however, could not be sustained as our knowledge expanded. The alternatives for human life were stark. We could refuse to admit that the premises underlying religious systems were fatally flawed and live in denial. That pathway is always present in the world of religion. Failing that, we could acknowledge that religion has always been delusional, more about a search for secuity than a search for truth, and thus be willing to give it up, face the consequences and deal with the fact that we are no more than accidental creatures in the an accidental universe. We then must enter the religionless world of a new humanity. That is when we are forced to conclude that purpose is what we give to life, meaning is what we invest in life and the hpe of something beyond the grave is only the pious dream of the childhood of our humanity. Many regard these working hypotheses as the only real alternative to the mindless, irrational denials contained in fundamentalism.
I have south to sketch out a new possibility.
.
.
.
"
(to know more you'll have to read the book for yourself)