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| Me, 40 years in the future? |
There´s something wrong with...I don´t know...belief-o-matics or something. I mean, during my most "based" period, an American GAL-TAN test showed me being somewhat to the left of Bernie Sanders. OK, let me guess, they asked all the wrong questions? Sure, I´m for single-payer health care, if that´s what you want to know...
The religious belief-o-matics are even more weird. I constantly come out as New Age, New Thought and/or Unitarian Universalist. Except the first time, when the test showed that I must be...a Sikh! And don´t freak?
So for da record, I don´t do crystals or channeling, don´t await the arrival of benign space brothers to some hippie commune, nor do I do affirmations in the hope of selling off real estate at inflated prices (in the neighborhood of Boston, presumably). I don´t even wear a turban and a golden dagger, although I suppose that could be interesting pastimes, especially in the middle of a pandemic! :D
So I don´t know, man. Isn´t there any option for, I don´t know, pseudo-Neoplatonists or something?
Nope, no category for Neo Platonists, pseudo or otherwise. The quiz is obviously biased, slanted or just plain out of touch with physical reality.
ReplyDeleteI came out as (Ta-Daa!) a Secular Humanist. Thanks be to God!
Yes I go to church (Catholic) read as a lector at Mass, sang for years in choir and as cantor, even led catechism classes for adults wanting to join up! Usually for marriage considerations, not Christian fervor.
Now the push is to the far right as Christian Nationalism grows ever more prevalent here in USA. Since the Supreme Court decision delegated abortion decisions to the State legislatures, the religious right has had a field day promoting everything but what Jesus actually taught. Oh and women need to be quiet and submissive, just as in the olden days of life in the Middle East!
Anyway, if there is a supreme being creator of all in an instant, and watching as it expands into its final state of inertia (all quiet forever)
it sure doesn't need *us* to worship it!
I would have guessed the New Age label was more applicable to you (at least broadly). ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe Catholicism I´m familiar with is very conservative and traditional, so unless I completely start believing in the entire catechism of the Catholic Church, I´m afraid I can´t join!
Have to stay pseudo-Neoplatonist for the time being.
Well, I love the parables, I enjoy the story of Jesus. I can almost cry at the story of the lepers who were cleansed. I felt much of an outcast myself early on. I feel it's important for the human mind to engage in mythology to feel secure in existence. But, (as always, a but!) as science moves forward and factually explains creation I also feel we must leave magical thinking behind us. True, I also want to believe the ultimate source of creation is good, yet there's cruelty in all of nature. Tell a Zebra being attacked and killed by a Lion that it's all good! From the lion's POV it's great, he gets a meal, from the Zebra...ouch!
DeleteAfter Vatican II the church moved toward more liberal interpretation of what constitutes christian values; Gee! we get to hear Mass in one's native language! I was personal friends with at least two priests, now deceased, who were *good guys* and wanted to help fellow humans in the journey across their lifetimes (relieve suffering?) and now it's returning to
a real conservative viewpoint, some bishops pushing for return to a Latin Mass for example. Hello! Jesus spoke Aramaic and maybe read Greek if he could read at all. Who cares about Latin anyway. The ritual of Mass is a performance, in which I performed as a reader and a singer.
Is the eucharist truly the body of christ magically transformed by the priest (males only please!) at the elevation? You'd be surprised to see our *young adults*, men and women, dropping to their knees at the communion rail, throwing their heads back with protruding tongue, and solemnly receiving the personal communion with Christ. Not a bunch of old church ladies but the young professionals. In search of holy marriages I guess. The big push is on that 25-35 age group
and much of the resources go toward their indoctrination in the conservative view.
So back to your point, I could have been new agey once, loved the music in the 1980's, but as I age I'm hoping we're in a Neo-Platonist style universe. I see my fellow citizens as basically good but cautious of the crime and violence rampant in this city. I see it as a striking out at our social injustice, race inequality, and stunning levels of poverty in what is supposedly *the wealthiest nation* where the billionaires pay virtually no taxes and the average Joe (or Jakob) pays a lot more to compensate.
Interesting. In Sweden, everyone is still talking about "the crisis of the Catholic Church", that they can´t get new priests, etc. (That is, globally. Few people in Sweden are Catholic.) I´m not a Christian, but had I been one, I would probably be too liberal for the Catholic Church and too conservative (in a sense) for the Church of Sweden...
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, I associate the Catholic Church with very conservative East European nations, the old Spanish Empire, that kind of stuff. Was in a conservative church once, the marriage was combined with holy communion, the only non-conservative thing was a kind of light-hearted gospel (?) from the choir, everyone turned around and wondered what was going on!
Hope the Neo-Platonist pseudo-stuff turns out to be right. ;-)
Camus, at the end of The Stranger, "and opened himself to the benign indifference of the universe." A beautiful phrase.
DeleteIt just struck me that pure indifference is neither good nor bad, so both Camus and Dawkins (sic) are actually projecting human categories onto the indifferent universe...
ReplyDeleteOk, attempting to think that one through.
Delete1) Neo Platonists = Source of all is good in itself as a premise?
2) Existentialism = life is random existence = indifferent source if there is a Source. We create meaning by the acts we do or don't do.
3) to claim *benign* indifference is Camus' attempt to overthrow the absurdity of existence? So projecting human values somehow fulfills existential objectives in that those projections are *acts*? Help me out here professor!
Maybe that is what he means. I mean, the term "benign indifference" sounds almost intentionally provocative. Neo-Platonism does indeed say that the cosmos is fundamentally good at all levels, even when it seems bad to us. This is why Neo-Platonism is easy to combine with certain kinds of Christianity. They both believe in a kind of "divine providence". Personally, I don´t really know what to believe about this. My attraction to Neo-Platonism is more "metaphysical", in that it can be interpreted as both monotheist, pantheist and polytheist at the same time, thereby bridging the gaps between all religions and worldviews (even materialism can be accommodated by Neo-Platonism since Plotinus believed that Aristotle described the physical world well enough). Certain Hindu systems reconcile these things, too. The idea that suffering is somehow "good" is more difficult to swallow, though. Not sure if that counts as benign indifference!
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