On Monday I saw an article about a book about Religious Illiteracy. So I wrote to the author just for the heck of it. Then yesterday I heard him interviewed.
Here's a link to the interview. . .
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/03/20070313_b_main.aspParts of it are better than others but what a loaded issue this is. Interesting that these issues are coming up with Pluto transiting the last degrees of Sag and on the heels of the 2nd opposition between Saturn and Neptune.
Here's what I wrote to the author. . .
"I was raised as a Congregationalist and it didn't exactly rock my soul. It was like squeezing faith in between tennis and brunch for large swaths of the Congregation. Yet, when the Minister (a quasi Jungian) would raise his hands standing in the back of the Church, as he did every week, and say with his big bombastic voice "and now may the grace of g-d the father and the love of his son Jesus be and abide with you from this day forward for surely it is and ever will be. . .a world without end," only with the last phrase I could fully spiritually concur.
I studied all sorts of religions and mythologies as a youth and could see both truth and fallacy in all of them.
I most strangely ran into a renegade hippie Hasid Mystic in my late 20's in LA whilst purchasing a Siamese fighting fish which I wound up naming "Gilgamesh."
The hippie Hasid absolutely blew my mind and triggered a spiritual crisis of sorts. He spoke a a divine feminine in hiding and explained specific rules about sexuality and money that truly made sense. Especially since, in my counseling practice, most have obtuse imbalances regarding those aspects oft onerous aspects of life. Having many of my core beliefs reflected in a very esoteric strain the oldest monotheistic belief system on the planet was freakish to me as I had long eschewed most organized religions, with the possible exception of Buddhism (and now Pastafarianism would qualify as well
http://www.venganza.org/.)
So the hippie Hasid said that I had a Jewish soul. I would only cop to having a Jewish sense of humor and didn't think souls had religious orientations. The Rabbi's always say, "you don't know who your mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's was. Though I know a fair amount of my genealogy, there's only so far one can go back matrilineally.
Years later I read in a Kryon channeling that Jews are the only group of souls that tend to reincarnate within the same group.
From my limited understanding, Arabic languages have multiple translations and the renegade hippie Hasid, who was fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic would say whilst interpreting the first 5 books of the Bible, "here it is for a Greek audience. . .here it is for a Roman audience. . .here it is for a Pagan audience. . .and here's how I see it. . ." His final interpretation was infused with the finest of comic Divine Comedy and Tragedy. The King James version of the Bible is entirely bereft of humor. Since then, I've refused to discuss the Bible with anyone who is not fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic.
I read a long time ago that astrophysicists speculate, though it's entirely not provable, that the primary chemical component at the center of our galaxy is NO2 (aka laughing gas.) Since then, I've declared that humor is my religion. It along with love are the singular unifying force for all. If we could only learn a joke in every language we may indeed arrive on a place of world peace."
I Baptized my son myself at my friendly neighborhood power spot (a sandbar) during an eclipse.
He and I talk a lot about the limitations and restrictions within most religions and the absolute hypocrisy of many who masquerade as Christians.
We always joke about the marquee in front of the local fundie church which has actually read. . ."Our Sundays are better than Dairy Queen's" and "Christ, He hung in there for you." I even called my folk's minister to run that latter statement past him and inquired as to whether it was my imagination or is that in incredibly poor taste. He concurred.
And though I've posted this before it's clearly evidence that my son has inherited humor as his religion. . .
Raymo's best stupid bar joke ever. . .
"So-o-o. . .this amazing energy previously unavailable to humankind walks into a bar. . . the bartender says, "W-oh". . .everyone gets enlightened."
on edit-wows. . .just stumbled on to this article. . .
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3061/preaching_revolution/It's about progressive Christians who are more Libertarian and sick of globalization and being represented by evangelical RW whack job and are actually helping their communities. Really interesting.