Go to Holy Church of Blog
- Add a comment
- Go to I'm going to keep CASH as an idea but I think I'll put it off for a while
posted by
arGee
on November 19, 2006 at 8:37 AM
| link to this | reply
arGee, I agree wtih you
even if it means that I won't be able to use religion to take money from people.
posted by
SuccessWarrior
on November 18, 2006 at 5:29 PM
| link to this | reply
Continuing serious response...
In a chapter of my book,
The Chicken Little Agenda – Debunking Experts' Lies, I discuss Morality and Ethics, where I distinguish between the two. In a nutshell, I posit that morality has its origins in religion, whereas ethics can be derived independently from any religious system. I then postulate that we need to move toward a society wherein our standards of behavior – our ethics, if you will – are derived in such a way that honorable people are bound to ethical behavior, no matter their particular brand of belief or non-belief.
posted by
arGee
on November 18, 2006 at 5:04 PM
| link to this | reply
arGee, does that make it okay for me to take their money? =)
With Christianity on its way out the door, what do you think the next major religion will look like? I have a hard time believing that there will be religions that cover as large of an area as our current ancient religions do.
posted by
SuccessWarrior
on November 18, 2006 at 4:29 PM
| link to this | reply
A relatively serious answer to your somewhat frivolous question, Success...
In a phrase: Why are religions perpetuated? or more simply, Why do people believe?
A half-century ago, Philip Wylie published his seminal work, An Essay on Morals. Wylie subtitles his small volume: “A Science of Philosophy and a Philosophy of the Sciences; a Popular Explanation of the Jungian Theory of Human Instinct; a new Bible for the Bold Mind and a way to Personal Peace by Logic; the Heretic’s Handbook and Text for Honest Skeptics, including a Description of Man suitable for an Atomic Age; together with a Compendium of Means to Brotherhood in a Better World; and a Voyage beyond the Opposite Directions of Religion and Objective Truth, to Understanding.”
In his Essay, Wylie summarizes much of Carl Jung’s insights – with Jung’s subsequent blessing (and to the consternation of Wylie’s critics who had panned his Essay as demonstrating no real understanding of Jung).
Humans are the current peak of the evolutionary process. Yet we retain most of the genetic material from the species that preceded us, and – in particular – we retain those genetic combinations that result in instinctual behavior in the “lower” animals. In humans, however, because we can conceptualize to a degree not available to other animals, we tend to ask “Why?” when confronted with the urge to behave in an unexplained manner, when we are driven by our instincts.
Jung postulates that humans sublimate their instincts that are clearly discernible in animals. This sublimation assumes a form he calls archetypal figures. Because we all generate similar archetypes, the human groups we form inevitably merge these figures into legends that underpin every human society. Jung discovered that everywhere on Earth, every society – no matter whether primitive or advanced – has created similar legends all containing exactly the same archetypes. Furthermore, he postulated that if you remove one set of archetypes, the affected society will substitute another, so that each instinct remains represented by the same figure, although in different garb.
For example, Jung analyzed the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church in Imperial Russia, and identified a list of archetypes. He then analyzed the structure of the Communist Party as it existed in Soviet Russia, after it had displaced the Russian Orthodox Church. The archetypes matched, point for point. And these compared closely with the archetypes he identified in Indian Vedantic literature, old Chinese Confucianism, Japanese Buddhism, ancient Greek mythology, and even the theistic beliefs of Australian Aboriginals. Stripped of their details and the bells and whistles of sophistication, they were all the same. No matter where Jung looked, and no matter how different beliefs, legends, and myths appeared on the surface, underneath all were identical.
posted by
arGee
on November 18, 2006 at 12:51 PM
| link to this | reply
They should be putting their tithing into a mutual fund
and I'm pretty sure they would get their blessing.
I don't know how mega my church will be with teachings like that though.
posted by
SuccessWarrior
on November 18, 2006 at 10:33 AM
| link to this | reply
What Blanche said
There are all too many televangelists out there who exhort believers to send in their tithes and offerings in return for a "blessing." Plenty of sheeple out there fall for the line, believing that regular tithing will produce abundant financial blessings for them. Makes me wonder what their faith is really in, in the first place.
posted by
kidnykid
on November 18, 2006 at 8:09 AM
| link to this | reply
SuccessWarrior, you haven't really hit the lowest of the low, until you set
up an 800 number on a station on cable, and exhort the faithful little old people on SSN, to tithe their check for a "blessing". Until then, SW, you have not, imho, hit the sleaziest bottom of televangelism. Perhaps you could have a couple of faith healers for the laying on of hands.
posted by
Blanche.
on November 18, 2006 at 7:38 AM
| link to this | reply