Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Bill, whether it's deplorables or anyone else, this is one of my guiding lights,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12
I do fall short at times from being perfect with every one, but that's what the forgiveness of sins is all about. God knows we're human and as long as we don't' give up, God helps us to be better human beings in the struggles of the Faith.
For me the teachings (many parables) that we now have of Jesus - that you so well write about, regarding his alliance with the poor, ordinary workers and prostitutes - as opposed to hanging out with the wealthy and powerful- his very clear message of Love that he spoke of often (and forgiveness) - for me, it all really depends on whether we actually do have a "spirit" or a "soul" - whatever you want to call it. And having a "soul" implying there is more to Love than just a simple evolutionary "survival trait" in a reality that doesn't really give one whit about each of our short existences - and that there will be more after we depart from this reality we now find ourselves in.
This is one of the common themes you find in all the plenitude of religions and myths that have spontaneous emerged from man's remarkable psyche, i.e. the theme of an eternal soul. And it is remarkable, scientists today still cannot account for, or explain the existence of consciousness. The cynics and skeptics will insist religion (at best) is simply the opiate of the masses, of helping assuage and rationalize the terrifying injustice and suffering so many humans have had to bear while existing - the horrors of mass murder, systemized torture, murder, extreme poverty etc. When, perhaps there really is no rationalization - the Universe just *is* cold and mechanical.
I suppose this is why so many require a leap of faith. Maybe similar to William James' leap of faith when he wrote: " Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact." There is a kind of leap of faith here that consciousness (or the soul) does play a role in reality, and does make life meaningful. Carl Jung (like William James) spent most of his life and work studying the psyche and came to a similar conclusion as James. But the riddle and enigma still remains (for me). What is consciousness? Do we have a soul? On that, all else depends.
As a nonbeliever, I have always thought the life was about finding a balance between two realities: 1) that the creation of a human being, as well as life on earth itself, is a mind-blowing miracle in the uniqueness of the outcome, be it human or snowflake; no one like it in the past, or future, and 2) in the grand scheme of things, despite that uniqueness, over the course of a thousand years, a blip in the history of the earth, our lives are no more significant than a grain of sand on the largest beach on the planet.
Dealing with the latter reality is difficult for many, if not most.
If you read any of William James (American philosopher, and founder of the first school of Psychology in the US at Harvard) and brother to Henry James - he struggled immensely with your number two point. He suffered from depression throughout his life because of this existential question we all face with our existence, regarding the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. He also wrote famously during his time a book in 1902 called "The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature" - based on his 1901-1902 Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Most people - even academics these days rarely bother with William James (his brother Henry has lasted longer in the fame department). I would say for the most part, because Reductive Materialism has become all the rage now in our academic and intellectual milieu, and has became a type of religion for our time - including the high priests of this religion - the four horsemen neoatheist skeptics: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.
The interesting thing about William James: he wasn't a theologian (unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson). James was thru and thru a scientist - of the first order, and established the philosophical school of Pragmatism and believed strongly in scientific empirical methods - in fact became known for Radical Empiricism i.e. "experience is the foundation of understanding reality."
Personally, I find William James work still relevant today. Particularly (some will be surprised) his work with Myers, Gurney, Podmore, Sedgwick, Balfour, Hodgson in the founding of the Society for Psychical Research - which is now a shadow of its former self. But the early writings of the SPR, one will find invaluable.
My depression, if one could call it that, is not based on the grain of sand reality, anyone with a rudimentary understanding of biological evolution should grasp that concept. Rather, as I approach my 75th year on the planet, the uncomfortable feeling that the human species is incapable of avoiding the iceberg of extinction, or short of that, near extinction, as a result of never being quite capable of breaking out of the capitalist paradigm that, by design, totally obfuscates the difference between want and need, or as some refer to it, wealth vs. value. Hope I am wrong, but the collective idiocracy on display at most every level of intellect and class is trending towards a rapid circling of the drain. I get that most every generation has a tendency to think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket; it seems to me our current complete and utter incapability to identify/address/fix real problems has no solution short of catastrophe. We’ll see, said the Zen Master.
I'm getting up there in age myself, although you are closer to that fateful day than I. It sometimes puzzles me why people become so attached to the fate of humankind - when they themselves will soon be "put away forever" so to speak, assuming death of the body also means the extinguishment of the you of your consciousness - which is probably the most common belief of academics and intellectuals today. Since once you're dead - nothing will matter (ever again) to you. Life will go on - but you won't be aware of it and it won't matter. You are just a flashbulb in eternity - and that flashbulb goes out pretty damn quickly.
Maybe I'm just selfish, or care more about my own existence than I should? Maybe having a taste of life, the beauty and even love - and then the thought of having it all being taken away (including those you have loved or still love) - leaves you with a sense of bitterness and anger, like you are some victim of a cruel joke being played upon you.
I'm also often amazed how many people are so willing to go off to the frontlines to some war. As if it's a video game in which they will survive. Do they not understand the possible consequences of their own death? That it's not some kind of movie theater they get to walk out of?
I'm the farthest thing from a Biblical scholar, but did Christ not also say that the only way to Heaven was through him? That seems to me to indicate that if one doesn't accept him or his specific teachings, one is irredeemable. And non-Christians are a large percentage of the global population.
And to answer the question posed by your headline, I'd say, "perhaps some, but by no means all."
I never could tolerate Hillary or her dismissive, Wall-Street-shill, Kissinger-admiring ways, but the one thing I think she was spot-on about was the basket of deplorables. By definition, Rump supporters own all the hate and mayhem he's generated.
If memory serves, Christ did indeed say "I am the way, the truth, and the light." But I don't think he said he was the only way ...
I refuse to believe that only those who embrace Christ are "saved." I don't dismiss Islam as a false religion or embrace Christianity as the one true faith. For me, it's about walking your own path consistent with a life of meaning, service, compassion, and the like. There are many "holy" and spiritual people who've never heard of Christianity. In my view, rewards in the afterlife exist, assuming there is one, are not forfeited if one isn't a professing Christian.
Which is to say I'm not a doctrinaire Christian ...
Quite a piece, on both the “spiritual” level, shall we say, and the political. As to the latter, when I initially heard Hillary’s remark, I said she’s accurately described the situation, it’s essentially a battle between the forces of civilization against the heathens. Clearly she had identified the enemy before us, and it was on to a vanquishing victory. I remember watching the results come in on that election night, fully expecting confirmation of my assessment. But as I watched the numbers coming in, I said to myself, “This isn’t breaking right.” Then came cover to the November 14, 2016 “New Yorker” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14.
What also came after that was Chris Hedges, particularly his 2018 book, “America, The Farewell Tour” (and before that, 2010’s “The Death of the Liberal Class”) which gave a different take on “the deplorable,” not as ignorant, godless heathens, but as people feeling betrayed and left desperate by such things as NAFTA, touted by Bill Clinton as a boon to the American worker and instead led to its deindustrialization and the loss of 30 million manufacturing jobs. “There was a moment when the Democratic Party watched out for the interests of working men and women,” Hedges has said. Trump railed against trade deals like NAFTA. Guess whom the 30 million voted for.
And who are the real deplorables? “It’s a [question] as powerful as it is enticing, and it’s one that Democrats, assuming they ever want to win the presidency again, should embrace now and in the future.”
Bill, in the separation of the sheep from the goats record, It has nothing to do with Religion, but with common humanity and compassion as you pointed out.
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungry, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in:
Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and fed you or thirsty, and gave you drink?
When did we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you?
Or when did we you sick, or in prison, and came to you?
And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me....
You're obviously not a doctrinaire! But according to the King James version, Christ did say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." That was one of the main things that always turned me off about religion: its claims to exclusivity and a lock on the truth.
There are an estimated 45,000 different Christian denominations right now worldwide, so the first question I might ask would be, what denomination are you referring to?
The follow up question might be: which bible are you referring to? The doctrinal bibles that have been excised and edited and revised by different religious Institutions in the last 2,000 years, or lesser known texts, bibles that have been completely banned, and thrown out by ecumenical decree? So which bible is it going to be?
Personally, I think what is claimed that Jesus actually said, and what he actually did say - are likely two different things. Which probably makes me a heretic in the eyes of many of today's Christians. But I get the same "heretic" label from neo-atheists as well, by suggesting scientists like Stephen Meyers, Rupert Sheldrake, Robert Lanza or even Bruce Greyson have presented valid empirical work, and buttressing arguments for their scientific hypothesis- but have been marginalized if not outcast for their heresies in the current orthodoxy of academia - dominated by strict, deterministic reductive materialism - that has no room for a "soul" at all.
Jesus is credited with saying a lot of things. He supposedly said: "the Kingdom of God is within you."
Even the supposed smartest people that ever existed say things, that sometimes turn out to be true - sometimes not. Albert Einstein insisted there must be Hidden Variables involved in the quantum wave function collapse. But with Bell's Inequalities and Kochen-Specker - it turns out Einstein was wrong. And reality is fundamentally contextual.
So who or what do you believe in? I guess we all have to walk our own path as best we can. Until that fateful day comes and our mortality decides to knock on our door. What that means - is something to ponder about. Or maybe, it means nothing at all - and the nihilists are right: life is nothing but a joke - a joke for many people who suffer all their lives, which might even include you and I. Or maybe you were one of the lucky ones, and you didn't suffer that much - before you were put away forever.
You asked questions, I answered them. I initially quoted what Christ supposedly said, as relayed in multiple sources; I didn't independently attest to either the truth of what he said OR the veracity of the sources. I made no pretense of believing anything. My point was that an entire religion is based on largely on that quotation, and it would seem to be exclusionary.
As for my beliefs, they're loosely Jungian: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Well - as you probably know, it's pretty easy to sink into the morass of a theological debate. The bible itself (particularly the New Testament) is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Making any theological argument regarding the veracity of what was said and not said, or what principles are true or not true - become a forum of endless debate - particular given the large number of different interpretations of the "bibles" and all the different Christian denominations that exist even today.
Carl Jung - surprisingly had a great deal of respect for Christianity, particularly the theological principle of Imitatio Christi (unlike Freud). Jung believed individual suffering does have meaning and we are meant to endure and learn from our sufferings as Jesus did. It is the only way we can individuate - but that we each do have purpose and destiny. We are teleological beings in nature - not just causal deterministic products.
Hello Bill Astore... What Inspired this Posting?... To me, DJT, and his MAGA Minions, remind me of Attila-The-Hun, and his Horde, which almost toppled the late decadent Western Roman Empire... Of Course Attila was more refined than DJT... ;-) ...
Today’s piece brings two responses. The first has to do with faith. I don’t know whether there are those who are irredeemable or not. But if everyone is capable of being saved, how do Christians, even fallen ones like you, explain the devil and the existence of hell? After all, isn’t hell, even if it has been updated for the modern age, where those end up whose transgressions are of such magnitude that salvation, however we define it, is not possible? Or, has the Church dropped all of that? Second, and more importantly. I have followed you since your Truthdig days and I have always found your essays not only empirically grounded but for the most part, thought provoking. It is for this reason that in today’s installment I feel you have treated Hillary Clinton unfairly. (For the record I am not a fan of either of the Clintons and remain stridently opposed to centrism in general and centralist Democrats in particular). In chiding Ms. Clinton for her now infamous “Deplorables” comment, like others, you neglect to include the qualifiers Mrs. Clinton provided to make it clear she wasn’t condemning all of those who endorsed Donald Trump. The people she was describing are those whose beliefs, attitudes, and the behaviors they act on, or endorse, based on those attitudes can only be described in that way. What the former Secretary of State didn’t say, and you imply, is that they were irredeemable.
Hi JIm: I'm not the best person to answer these questions, but I'll give it a shot:
1. "Hell" today is I think often visualized as the absence of God, the absence of grace, not a place of eternal torture and torment. Some Christians, I'm sure, still believe in the devil; others, I think, see the devil less as a specific fallen archangel and more as temptation and sin itself. So, if there are better angels of our nature, there a worse devils of our nature as well. In this sense, good and evil is a battle within us, not a cosmic struggle between God and Satan for our souls. But there are of course people who believe in a literal devil that is a force for evil in the world.
2. Yes, it's true Clinton didn't put all Trump voters into her "basket of deplorables." I think she said roughly half of them. (That's still, what, 40 million people?) And if you check the record, she did add that some in the basket were "irredeemable." That was a big deal at the time and was called out by pundits like David Brooks.
Her words on 9/9/16: "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America."
Tactically, this was a major mistake for her campaign.
I consider Clinton, and her husband, both deplorable and irredeemable, both for the death and destruction they caused, as well as their arrogance in refusing to acknowledge it. It’s a far cry from casting a vote for, or supporting, a grifter like Trump, and actually having access to the levers of power, and using it to hurt people based on stupid ideology or a desire to be accepted into the circle of elites.
Wow, Colonel, you trashed the best thing Hillary ever spouted in public!!! It was so on the money she of course had to "walk it back" within what, an hour?? Let's bring our buddy Mark Twain back into the picture (sorry I don't have exact verbiage in front of me). He proposed that American missionaries who were seeking to "redeem sinners" in foreign lands should be recalled to our country and put to work trying to civilize the likes of the KKK. And anyone else who hates and persecutes others in the name of Jesus. Tamp that down in your pipe and smoke it!! :-)
Christianity and Hillary first Christianity God or Gods exist but hide so completely that a Universe w/ them is identical to one without him, them, or her... God or Gods now 3000 and counting revealed itself to a pre-scientific Tribe in a backward time, in one corner of the world and never again in the same way once cameras were invented. Gods answer prayer in the same way like what would have happened anyway. Evolution is real. Why do Hindus meet Vishnu, Catholics meet Mary? God or Gods have finely tuned trillions of Galaxies over 13.8 billion years, almost every inch of it instantly lethal to homo-sapiens-- as a home built for US?? God allows childhood cancers, parasites that eat innocent childrens eyes out for what greater good that nobody has ever been able to name. God or Gods is a human invention nothing more nothing less....Now Hillary just not likable... Bill her husband I liked. :/ :o) "Saganist!!!"
Funny you should mention famous astronomers. I did my undergraduate work at UC Santa Cruz, famous for its astronomy department at the time. (Not so sure nowadays). Oddly enough, the astronomy professor I had a course with - didn't think to highly of Sagan! Thought he was a showman! I know - sounds apocryphal to all the Saganites out there. But true story! heh.
I've always seen the evils in this world perpetuated by humans as a psychological one - not primarily based on religion alone.
Secularism has a long history of wars and depravity. The last two world wars were secular wars. World War II was the deadliest war in human history - killed an estimated 75 million people. World War I also secular, killed 23 million people. And the secular neoliberalism we have today - that dominates the West, is responsible for massive levels of inequality and poverty.
So ... I just don't see religion as this great evil of all time as it is made out to be. The problem of evil (to me) really lies in the human psyche and its own "evolutionary" development - which walks upon a razor's edge.
I just don't see everything in binary terms. The psyche is not binary - it is about as layered and complex as a physical organism is layered and complex - made up of multiple psychological forces, and also layered like an onion.
Reading the article reminded me of a quote by a prominent figure.
The seed of light lies within us and bears the name of love.
Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live also.
At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14:19-21
Bill, whether it's deplorables or anyone else, this is one of my guiding lights,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12
I do fall short at times from being perfect with every one, but that's what the forgiveness of sins is all about. God knows we're human and as long as we don't' give up, God helps us to be better human beings in the struggles of the Faith.
For me the teachings (many parables) that we now have of Jesus - that you so well write about, regarding his alliance with the poor, ordinary workers and prostitutes - as opposed to hanging out with the wealthy and powerful- his very clear message of Love that he spoke of often (and forgiveness) - for me, it all really depends on whether we actually do have a "spirit" or a "soul" - whatever you want to call it. And having a "soul" implying there is more to Love than just a simple evolutionary "survival trait" in a reality that doesn't really give one whit about each of our short existences - and that there will be more after we depart from this reality we now find ourselves in.
This is one of the common themes you find in all the plenitude of religions and myths that have spontaneous emerged from man's remarkable psyche, i.e. the theme of an eternal soul. And it is remarkable, scientists today still cannot account for, or explain the existence of consciousness. The cynics and skeptics will insist religion (at best) is simply the opiate of the masses, of helping assuage and rationalize the terrifying injustice and suffering so many humans have had to bear while existing - the horrors of mass murder, systemized torture, murder, extreme poverty etc. When, perhaps there really is no rationalization - the Universe just *is* cold and mechanical.
I suppose this is why so many require a leap of faith. Maybe similar to William James' leap of faith when he wrote: " Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact." There is a kind of leap of faith here that consciousness (or the soul) does play a role in reality, and does make life meaningful. Carl Jung (like William James) spent most of his life and work studying the psyche and came to a similar conclusion as James. But the riddle and enigma still remains (for me). What is consciousness? Do we have a soul? On that, all else depends.
As a nonbeliever, I have always thought the life was about finding a balance between two realities: 1) that the creation of a human being, as well as life on earth itself, is a mind-blowing miracle in the uniqueness of the outcome, be it human or snowflake; no one like it in the past, or future, and 2) in the grand scheme of things, despite that uniqueness, over the course of a thousand years, a blip in the history of the earth, our lives are no more significant than a grain of sand on the largest beach on the planet.
Dealing with the latter reality is difficult for many, if not most.
If you read any of William James (American philosopher, and founder of the first school of Psychology in the US at Harvard) and brother to Henry James - he struggled immensely with your number two point. He suffered from depression throughout his life because of this existential question we all face with our existence, regarding the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. He also wrote famously during his time a book in 1902 called "The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature" - based on his 1901-1902 Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Most people - even academics these days rarely bother with William James (his brother Henry has lasted longer in the fame department). I would say for the most part, because Reductive Materialism has become all the rage now in our academic and intellectual milieu, and has became a type of religion for our time - including the high priests of this religion - the four horsemen neoatheist skeptics: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.
The interesting thing about William James: he wasn't a theologian (unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson). James was thru and thru a scientist - of the first order, and established the philosophical school of Pragmatism and believed strongly in scientific empirical methods - in fact became known for Radical Empiricism i.e. "experience is the foundation of understanding reality."
Personally, I find William James work still relevant today. Particularly (some will be surprised) his work with Myers, Gurney, Podmore, Sedgwick, Balfour, Hodgson in the founding of the Society for Psychical Research - which is now a shadow of its former self. But the early writings of the SPR, one will find invaluable.
My depression, if one could call it that, is not based on the grain of sand reality, anyone with a rudimentary understanding of biological evolution should grasp that concept. Rather, as I approach my 75th year on the planet, the uncomfortable feeling that the human species is incapable of avoiding the iceberg of extinction, or short of that, near extinction, as a result of never being quite capable of breaking out of the capitalist paradigm that, by design, totally obfuscates the difference between want and need, or as some refer to it, wealth vs. value. Hope I am wrong, but the collective idiocracy on display at most every level of intellect and class is trending towards a rapid circling of the drain. I get that most every generation has a tendency to think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket; it seems to me our current complete and utter incapability to identify/address/fix real problems has no solution short of catastrophe. We’ll see, said the Zen Master.
I'm getting up there in age myself, although you are closer to that fateful day than I. It sometimes puzzles me why people become so attached to the fate of humankind - when they themselves will soon be "put away forever" so to speak, assuming death of the body also means the extinguishment of the you of your consciousness - which is probably the most common belief of academics and intellectuals today. Since once you're dead - nothing will matter (ever again) to you. Life will go on - but you won't be aware of it and it won't matter. You are just a flashbulb in eternity - and that flashbulb goes out pretty damn quickly.
Maybe I'm just selfish, or care more about my own existence than I should? Maybe having a taste of life, the beauty and even love - and then the thought of having it all being taken away (including those you have loved or still love) - leaves you with a sense of bitterness and anger, like you are some victim of a cruel joke being played upon you.
I'm also often amazed how many people are so willing to go off to the frontlines to some war. As if it's a video game in which they will survive. Do they not understand the possible consequences of their own death? That it's not some kind of movie theater they get to walk out of?
I'm the farthest thing from a Biblical scholar, but did Christ not also say that the only way to Heaven was through him? That seems to me to indicate that if one doesn't accept him or his specific teachings, one is irredeemable. And non-Christians are a large percentage of the global population.
And to answer the question posed by your headline, I'd say, "perhaps some, but by no means all."
I never could tolerate Hillary or her dismissive, Wall-Street-shill, Kissinger-admiring ways, but the one thing I think she was spot-on about was the basket of deplorables. By definition, Rump supporters own all the hate and mayhem he's generated.
If memory serves, Christ did indeed say "I am the way, the truth, and the light." But I don't think he said he was the only way ...
I refuse to believe that only those who embrace Christ are "saved." I don't dismiss Islam as a false religion or embrace Christianity as the one true faith. For me, it's about walking your own path consistent with a life of meaning, service, compassion, and the like. There are many "holy" and spiritual people who've never heard of Christianity. In my view, rewards in the afterlife exist, assuming there is one, are not forfeited if one isn't a professing Christian.
Which is to say I'm not a doctrinaire Christian ...
Quite a piece, on both the “spiritual” level, shall we say, and the political. As to the latter, when I initially heard Hillary’s remark, I said she’s accurately described the situation, it’s essentially a battle between the forces of civilization against the heathens. Clearly she had identified the enemy before us, and it was on to a vanquishing victory. I remember watching the results come in on that election night, fully expecting confirmation of my assessment. But as I watched the numbers coming in, I said to myself, “This isn’t breaking right.” Then came cover to the November 14, 2016 “New Yorker” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14.
What also came after that was Chris Hedges, particularly his 2018 book, “America, The Farewell Tour” (and before that, 2010’s “The Death of the Liberal Class”) which gave a different take on “the deplorable,” not as ignorant, godless heathens, but as people feeling betrayed and left desperate by such things as NAFTA, touted by Bill Clinton as a boon to the American worker and instead led to its deindustrialization and the loss of 30 million manufacturing jobs. “There was a moment when the Democratic Party watched out for the interests of working men and women,” Hedges has said. Trump railed against trade deals like NAFTA. Guess whom the 30 million voted for.
And who are the real deplorables? “It’s a [question] as powerful as it is enticing, and it’s one that Democrats, assuming they ever want to win the presidency again, should embrace now and in the future.”
Bill, in the separation of the sheep from the goats record, It has nothing to do with Religion, but with common humanity and compassion as you pointed out.
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungry, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in:
Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and fed you or thirsty, and gave you drink?
When did we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you?
Or when did we you sick, or in prison, and came to you?
And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me....
Matthew 25:32-46
Yes, good point, Ray.
Cutting USAID to give tax breaks for the rich, and to buy more weapons is going in the opposite direction and there will be Spiritual consequences.
You're obviously not a doctrinaire! But according to the King James version, Christ did say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." That was one of the main things that always turned me off about religion: its claims to exclusivity and a lock on the truth.
There are an estimated 45,000 different Christian denominations right now worldwide, so the first question I might ask would be, what denomination are you referring to?
The follow up question might be: which bible are you referring to? The doctrinal bibles that have been excised and edited and revised by different religious Institutions in the last 2,000 years, or lesser known texts, bibles that have been completely banned, and thrown out by ecumenical decree? So which bible is it going to be?
Personally, I think what is claimed that Jesus actually said, and what he actually did say - are likely two different things. Which probably makes me a heretic in the eyes of many of today's Christians. But I get the same "heretic" label from neo-atheists as well, by suggesting scientists like Stephen Meyers, Rupert Sheldrake, Robert Lanza or even Bruce Greyson have presented valid empirical work, and buttressing arguments for their scientific hypothesis- but have been marginalized if not outcast for their heresies in the current orthodoxy of academia - dominated by strict, deterministic reductive materialism - that has no room for a "soul" at all.
I thought "non-Christians" was pretty self-explanatory, but OK: Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Confuscians, Shintoists, and so on.
As for the version:
https://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm
Jesus is credited with saying a lot of things. He supposedly said: "the Kingdom of God is within you."
Even the supposed smartest people that ever existed say things, that sometimes turn out to be true - sometimes not. Albert Einstein insisted there must be Hidden Variables involved in the quantum wave function collapse. But with Bell's Inequalities and Kochen-Specker - it turns out Einstein was wrong. And reality is fundamentally contextual.
So who or what do you believe in? I guess we all have to walk our own path as best we can. Until that fateful day comes and our mortality decides to knock on our door. What that means - is something to ponder about. Or maybe, it means nothing at all - and the nihilists are right: life is nothing but a joke - a joke for many people who suffer all their lives, which might even include you and I. Or maybe you were one of the lucky ones, and you didn't suffer that much - before you were put away forever.
You asked questions, I answered them. I initially quoted what Christ supposedly said, as relayed in multiple sources; I didn't independently attest to either the truth of what he said OR the veracity of the sources. I made no pretense of believing anything. My point was that an entire religion is based on largely on that quotation, and it would seem to be exclusionary.
As for my beliefs, they're loosely Jungian: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Well - as you probably know, it's pretty easy to sink into the morass of a theological debate. The bible itself (particularly the New Testament) is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Making any theological argument regarding the veracity of what was said and not said, or what principles are true or not true - become a forum of endless debate - particular given the large number of different interpretations of the "bibles" and all the different Christian denominations that exist even today.
Carl Jung - surprisingly had a great deal of respect for Christianity, particularly the theological principle of Imitatio Christi (unlike Freud). Jung believed individual suffering does have meaning and we are meant to endure and learn from our sufferings as Jesus did. It is the only way we can individuate - but that we each do have purpose and destiny. We are teleological beings in nature - not just causal deterministic products.
Hello Bill Astore... What Inspired this Posting?... To me, DJT, and his MAGA Minions, remind me of Attila-The-Hun, and his Horde, which almost toppled the late decadent Western Roman Empire... Of Course Attila was more refined than DJT... ;-) ...
The pamphlet I found near my mailbox inspired it. That and a need to write something that wasn't about nuclear war or the MIC :-)
Today’s piece brings two responses. The first has to do with faith. I don’t know whether there are those who are irredeemable or not. But if everyone is capable of being saved, how do Christians, even fallen ones like you, explain the devil and the existence of hell? After all, isn’t hell, even if it has been updated for the modern age, where those end up whose transgressions are of such magnitude that salvation, however we define it, is not possible? Or, has the Church dropped all of that? Second, and more importantly. I have followed you since your Truthdig days and I have always found your essays not only empirically grounded but for the most part, thought provoking. It is for this reason that in today’s installment I feel you have treated Hillary Clinton unfairly. (For the record I am not a fan of either of the Clintons and remain stridently opposed to centrism in general and centralist Democrats in particular). In chiding Ms. Clinton for her now infamous “Deplorables” comment, like others, you neglect to include the qualifiers Mrs. Clinton provided to make it clear she wasn’t condemning all of those who endorsed Donald Trump. The people she was describing are those whose beliefs, attitudes, and the behaviors they act on, or endorse, based on those attitudes can only be described in that way. What the former Secretary of State didn’t say, and you imply, is that they were irredeemable.
Hi JIm: I'm not the best person to answer these questions, but I'll give it a shot:
1. "Hell" today is I think often visualized as the absence of God, the absence of grace, not a place of eternal torture and torment. Some Christians, I'm sure, still believe in the devil; others, I think, see the devil less as a specific fallen archangel and more as temptation and sin itself. So, if there are better angels of our nature, there a worse devils of our nature as well. In this sense, good and evil is a battle within us, not a cosmic struggle between God and Satan for our souls. But there are of course people who believe in a literal devil that is a force for evil in the world.
2. Yes, it's true Clinton didn't put all Trump voters into her "basket of deplorables." I think she said roughly half of them. (That's still, what, 40 million people?) And if you check the record, she did add that some in the basket were "irredeemable." That was a big deal at the time and was called out by pundits like David Brooks.
Her words on 9/9/16: "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America."
Tactically, this was a major mistake for her campaign.
Hello Bill... Hilary Clinton is also Arrogant, and not very Likable...
I consider Clinton, and her husband, both deplorable and irredeemable, both for the death and destruction they caused, as well as their arrogance in refusing to acknowledge it. It’s a far cry from casting a vote for, or supporting, a grifter like Trump, and actually having access to the levers of power, and using it to hurt people based on stupid ideology or a desire to be accepted into the circle of elites.
Wow, Colonel, you trashed the best thing Hillary ever spouted in public!!! It was so on the money she of course had to "walk it back" within what, an hour?? Let's bring our buddy Mark Twain back into the picture (sorry I don't have exact verbiage in front of me). He proposed that American missionaries who were seeking to "redeem sinners" in foreign lands should be recalled to our country and put to work trying to civilize the likes of the KKK. And anyone else who hates and persecutes others in the name of Jesus. Tamp that down in your pipe and smoke it!! :-)
Christianity and Hillary first Christianity God or Gods exist but hide so completely that a Universe w/ them is identical to one without him, them, or her... God or Gods now 3000 and counting revealed itself to a pre-scientific Tribe in a backward time, in one corner of the world and never again in the same way once cameras were invented. Gods answer prayer in the same way like what would have happened anyway. Evolution is real. Why do Hindus meet Vishnu, Catholics meet Mary? God or Gods have finely tuned trillions of Galaxies over 13.8 billion years, almost every inch of it instantly lethal to homo-sapiens-- as a home built for US?? God allows childhood cancers, parasites that eat innocent childrens eyes out for what greater good that nobody has ever been able to name. God or Gods is a human invention nothing more nothing less....Now Hillary just not likable... Bill her husband I liked. :/ :o) "Saganist!!!"
At least we can say Sagan existed.
Billions and billions of years ago, when man first invented the turtle neck sweater.
There are about a billion ways Carl would not be able to say "not bad" on that one Jamenta!! lol
Yes I watched COSMOS. And even bought the book based on that PBS series. Billions and billions of years ago!
C.S. a famous Astronomer would approve...:0)
Funny you should mention famous astronomers. I did my undergraduate work at UC Santa Cruz, famous for its astronomy department at the time. (Not so sure nowadays). Oddly enough, the astronomy professor I had a course with - didn't think to highly of Sagan! Thought he was a showman! I know - sounds apocryphal to all the Saganites out there. But true story! heh.
I will never to be confused with the-- "Reverend Silas Pendrake!" :O)
I've always seen the evils in this world perpetuated by humans as a psychological one - not primarily based on religion alone.
Secularism has a long history of wars and depravity. The last two world wars were secular wars. World War II was the deadliest war in human history - killed an estimated 75 million people. World War I also secular, killed 23 million people. And the secular neoliberalism we have today - that dominates the West, is responsible for massive levels of inequality and poverty.
So ... I just don't see religion as this great evil of all time as it is made out to be. The problem of evil (to me) really lies in the human psyche and its own "evolutionary" development - which walks upon a razor's edge.
Acknowleged, but yet if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem as well...
I just don't see everything in binary terms. The psyche is not binary - it is about as layered and complex as a physical organism is layered and complex - made up of multiple psychological forces, and also layered like an onion.