Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mtxinu!sybase!alf!maas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Mike Maas) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Missed Point Message-ID: Date: 3 Jan 91 09:36:14 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sybase, Inc. Lines: 151 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Note: I tried to reply to this but the mailer choked so I am posting it to the newsgroup. In an article >From: spock@maths.tcd.ie Tommy Hayes (Thanks Dr.W.) says: > Tommy, Please correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds as if you have had a good deal of religious education (perhaps even indoctrination) and now you are looking for some answers to some personally very meaningful questions. Your letter indicates that you have some doubt about what you have been taught but that you are seeking answers from other people. I will answer all of your questions to the best of my ability. I will share with you my own convictions and you may do with them as you wish. Take what is useful and leave the rest. > Why can't everybody just realise that Jesus was just an ordinary, > albeit very ahead of his time,person who had a lot of brilliant > ideas about how we should live? Well, many people do accept that Jesus was quite an ordinary person in the sense that he was "fully human". On the other hand, while I don't have an answer that can be backed up by any kind of objective proof I do believe that Jesus was extraordinary in many ways. Let me just cite one of them that has proven to be very meaningful to me: In the Garden of Gethsemene Jesus accepts the cup that God has given him. Had he refused it, he would have been just one more idealistic rebel more than likely forgotten by history, but his acceptance led to the cross. I doubt that anyone described as "ordinary" would have made a similar decision. On brilliant ideas. They don't strike me as brilliant in a worldly sense, but they are mind/heart opening. What is particularly meaningful to me is the way they invite us to live the Love that God has given us. Time and again, Jesus in his actions and words points out that the way to God is through love. He calls us to love him, to love God, to love ourselves (one of the most important for the modern west) and to love our neighbors. These ideas when lived through faithing do lead one to a more content life, but the liver of such a life will look more foolish than brilliant to much of the world. On being ahead of his time. Not really in that most of what he taught existed before he arrived. On the other hand, he did cast a new light on traditional teachings and even many Jewish scholars recognize much of the uniqueness of the teachings of Jesus. Finally, those teachings, especially as lived and taught by Jesus, are in a sense out of time. They are always ahead of us who are trying to follow them. > There is absolutly no need to bring in god,heaven or anything like > that to explain anything, Well, I guess that may be true. But I would have difficulty believing that I could follow the road that Jesus followed without a very good reason. One might answer that love is a good enough reason, to which I say amen and "God is Love." This is the perhaps the main reason I am a follower of Jesus. I don't follow because I want the reward of heaven or because I fear God's punishing wrath; I follow because I know that I am loved by the risen Christ and because I want to Love. > and anybody who does was either brainwashed by their parents or else > are too ignorant to think objectivly about their religion. This appears to be a very sensitive area for you. I can certainly tell you I wasn't brainwashed. I never went to church or Sunday school as a child nor did my parents. I'm not sure I have thought objectively about my beliefs either, but I am sure I have thought just as objectively as has anyone else. The real question is "can one in any sense think objectively?" I can also tell you that the love of Christ is not an objective experience, but it is nonetheless real, nay Real. Tommy, I can only say to you that you have to open your heart to God if you want to experience him for yourself. I know this may be difficult, especially if the only idea of God you know is one that does not resonate within your heart. I would suggest that you ask God to come into your life in a way that is meaningful for you. One of the most wonderful things about being human is that we are all different, and we all need to be able to communicate with God in whatever way is most meaningful to us as individuals. One of the most wonderful things about God is that He is perfectly capable of meeting each of us in our individuality. It is a great pastoral skill to be able to mediate God to others, and one that I am sure you will be able to find in your neighborhood. I would suggest that you find someone you trust who seems to be content and happy in the religious aspects of their life and ask them for advice about who you might talk to. > I remember one of my many religious instructors in school once gave > a very cutting address against people like the dreaded 'Moonies' > and 'Born Again Christians' who kidnap people unbeknowns to them > and brainwash them for a couple of weeks into their way of thinking. > The thing is, he said he was giving the opinion of the catholic > church. Will somebody please tell me what the difference between this > and your parents doing the 'right thing' and brain-washing you for the > first 14 odd years of your life? I'll try. Cults, whether the two groups you mentioned above qualify or not is open to debate, have an ulterior motive. They often present themselves as a very loving community in order to get people to join them. Once the victim is in the net, they use other techniques that do amount to brainwashing. Peer pressure is a very strong force for most of us. The important thing to remember is that for these groups, the loving atmosphere is a ploy, or tool used to manipulate victims. Parents, on the other hand, hopefully truly love their children and seek through passing on religion and other values to give their children a strong moral/social foundation on which they can build a constructive life that will in turn allow them to function efficiently in the world and raise their own children to do the same. Not all family situations are healthy, in fact in some societies a majority of them are not, but almost always, healthy or not, the parents believe that what they are doing is good for their children, and they are doing it at least partially out of love, true love with no motive other than itself. One of the analogies that has been helpful to me to understand God is that of God as a parent. You probably are not a parent yet, but believe me when you become one, you will be disappointed many times by your children. It helps me to remember that God is disappointed in me in a similar way for many of the things I do. Yet I am still aware that God loves me, and that helps me to continue to love my children despite my disappointments. Likewise, many of us carry images of God that are remarkably like those of our father. This is something I have had to work to overcome. I was raised in a typical American family where love was not freely expressed and only in my adult life have I come to feel loved. I asked God for his love and he poured it out to me. This is my strongest evidence for his existence and it has caused me to reevaluate much of my former thought. Tommy, I don't know you or your background, but I do hope these answers will help you to understand why some of us understand what we do. Best regards and God bless, Mike Maas I know a well that flows and runs Yet remains hidden An eternal spring, a hidden well I know nothing else so full of beauty In the heavens or the earth For all beauty and all life Drink from the water of her light I know this well will run eternal Ever deep and ever wide And no one man can ever cross it Without the faith from on high I know this well does overflow To give light to mankind This spring is hidden within the living Bread Flowing from the Bread of Life And no one man can ever taste it Without the faith from on high Taken from "I Know A Well" St. John of the Cross/Michael Talbott