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Old 09-03-2015, 04:57 PM
 
4,654 posts, read 4,098,633 times
Reputation: 9012

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This describes my values. All are welcome to join, but I am targeting American liberals who are not satisfied with the anti-religious stance of their own and conservatives who think that possibly their belief in god needs an update. Here are my 30 tenets. Possibly more to follow as this evolves.

1) There is a god, and he/she/it wants us to understand good in this world and ennact it.

2) Number 1 is self-evident. We dont waste time trying to prove it to anyone. If you are an athiest or agnostic, then go in peace. It you want our advice, fellowshipe and guidance, we are here for you.

3) God never, or perhaps only very rarely and very subtely intercedes in this world. Natural law pretty much governs and the reason for that is that we are suppossed to solve our own problems and show that we can obtain peace and prosperity ourselves. There is no victory for us in blindly obeying. Perhaps god is like a parent who wants her/his children to succed on their own. That is the reason for the silence of god.

4) All past religions have been attempts to understand the mind of god. They are, however, flawed, and situational. Rules that might have made sense in the past don't in light of the evolution of our understanding of our consiouness. Other rules can be abadandoned as simply bad ideas.

5) Number 4 does not mean that we sever from the past entirely or abandon old ideas and start from scratch. We honor past religious figures as philiosophers who asked ths same quesions that we are asking, and attempted to wrestle with the idea of morality in this world. We find value in Christian mercy, Islamic charity, Judaic duty, Buhddist anti-materialsim, Hindu concern for the animal world, Wiccan concern for woman and nature. We can cite the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, the Veddas. It is just that at the end of the day, we acknowledge that their leaderships is imperfect. No single phrase it the end of the conversation.

6) Because we are struggling with the idea of morality and look to the past for inspriation, we acknoweldge the violent, cruel, strange, and contradictory passages of holy books from the past, and we do not have to go through legalistic hoops to justify them to non-believers. We are trying to cull what is still considered good from them.

7) If all of this sounds hard, it is. That is the point. Knowledge of good from bad is not as simple as opening up a book written thousands of years ago. It is not suppossed to be. It is a debate. It is a struggle. and thus, ours is a living religion open to ideas rather than dogmatic. We are informed by the past, not defined by it. God gives us hints, but he is not going to do the work for us. Perhaps even we can look at this as a constitution that is open to ammendment from its followers.

8) The world is filled with logical paradoxes, and we understand that. For example we want to be merciful to our enemies, but it is hardly merciful to our families and friends to allow our enemies to destory us. Thus, it is a discussion amongst ourselves as to when when it is most good to fight and most good to turn the cheek. Discussion is key. There is no completely right or wrong answer. The principle of paradox--beliefs contradicting, having multiple interpretations, or sometimes having to be mitigated--is not something that we run from. We face it. We do the best we can and acknowledge that sometimes we are going to be wrong.

9) We do not have prophets as we do not believe that god actually talks to anyone. I am sure as heck no holy man. I just want to set down some rules that we can all agree on.

10) Science is in no way in contradiction with our beliefs. Science is a method, not a religion or even a philopshy. Those scientists who try to impose their own beliefs about god one way or the other are not following their own method, and can pretty much be ignored. In any event, we are abandoning or at least downplaying the miraculous nature of past religion. I am not arguing to any scientist that anyone was risen from the dead or moved a mountian. Science is good and is another aspect of the mind of god. But its ability to guide in terms of morailty--how we live together and spread good--is limited.

11) Similarly, we include all sources of knowledge and all of those who have tried to increase knowledge in our discussion. Philosophers, artists, writers, poltiicians, activists, regular folks and all others can be holy people to us.

12) God is good. God is love. God is mercy. God is moral courage. God is not doing what is best not for yourself, but for people who are like you, people who are different, nature, and animals. God is increasing knoweldge, easing suffering, and making the world a better place.

13) We were put on this earth to leave it bettter than we found it.

14) We can take sympathetic members of traditional religions and philospohies as allies. There is no contraditcion (to us) for someone to say: "I am a Christian Neo-Desist," or "I am a Hindu Neo-Desits." We do not demand dogmatic adherance to our tenets. Sympathy breeds discussion, which is what will save the world.

15) We agree to disagree on things. At the end of the day, you have to decide what god wants from you. You are a free agent. We come together for discussion, influence, and agreement when possible.

16) For those who opose us, we differentiate between opponents and enemies. We use extreme moderation for those who are merely opponents. We discuss, debate, and act in friendly terms, never using hyperbloic rhetoric such as saying that they are "worse than Hitler" or "terrorists" or any such nonsense. For those who are genuine enemies, those who really are Hilters or terrorists, we still try every avenue of persuassion and conversion. Conflict may be neccesary as per rule 8, but it is a last resort and tempered with as much mercy as is possible.

17) No one can ask you to go agaisnt your conscience in serving god. If someone asks you to do something that you find abhorent, then the sin is on them.

18) I am not asking for money or anything else. This is anathema to my ideas about knowledge. Anyone asking from you money or actions in contradiction with your personal belies are wicked.

19) We do not have a strong hierarchy. Our leaders are good thinkers and speakers. There is no priest of our religion, only those that we admire. They can be women, men, gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, Asian...anything else as long as they inspire us to kindness and good moral choices.

20) No matter how bad things get, we remember that we were put on this earth for a purpose. Even if we don't understand it, even if we don't feel we got the chance we deserved, even if we see those who apparently did not have much chance at all, we keep soldiering on. This world is not about us, our egos, and our ense of entitlement, but how far we can futher the ball. Even children with cancer or those who are starving serve to inspire us to good works, and that is a contribution as great as any other.

21) You are entitled to your own beleifs about an afterlife. We can discuss, but will not argue them, since no one can present much evidence one way or the other. We are looking towards making this world better.

22) Our religion shall be friendly to gays. In defining proper relationships as only between man and women, we have perahps missed an opportunity to allow people to show love for each other. We have missed out their unique perspectives. We have missed out on an opportunity to treat those who are nominally different with kindess. In defining families as having only a traditional mother and father, we have missed an opportunity for orphans who would like to have familes and to be adopted by loving gay couples. We will not be "passively tolerant," but actively appreciate that god made our differances for reasons.

23) Men are made physically stronger than women, but a good man seeks a woman's council and holds her up as an equal, giving her all opportunity. Men and women are inherently different in many respects, and men are not without the advantages conferred by testosterone, but woman are undoubtedly less impetuous, less violent, more merciful and in many ways closer to some of the virtues that we are talking about. We should find solutions to make women's lives more fullfilling, including looking at motherhood as a legitimate thing to cite on a job resume, so that they do not have to chose between careers and family. This should not be a man's world or a woman's world, but all of our world.

24) Women's rights will save the world-literally. Overpopulation is what is killing the planet, destroying species, and turning paradise into desert. We see time and again that when women are given the right to chose career, they have less children. Women's rights is not only what is right, but what is right for the world.

25) As for men, they need guidance. Testosterone is powerful. It is a huge creative force in history, but it needs to be reinged in, and not just through sports. Boys and young men need help focusing their energy. We are failing them in this departement in this modern world becasue we have no rules no stanadards, no expectations in 21st century American and elsewhere. For several generations now, men have been taught that the world is a playground and that they should never grow up. We will insist on moral guiance and structure for our young men.

26) We will fail in our lofty attempts. This is hard. We will always go back to the drawing board. Similary, we do not denounce others as hypocrits lightly. No one is perfect. No one can adhere perectly to their beliefs.

27) Should intelligent alien life be discovered, it will in no way negate our beliefs, but we will invite them to share in our fellowship so long as it is safe to do so. It does not make sense that god created a nearly infinite universe only for us.

28) It goes without saying that there is no such thing as race, only different types of beauty.

29) There are, however, diffferent cultures, and we do no one any favors when we don't point out to them their own self destructive behavior, both in America and out. When we see a culture that does not value hard work, individual rights, rule of reason, rule of law, or that does value criminality, violence, misogyny, dependence or other perverse values, we will say so. We will not be afraid of the slings and arrows that come our way. Love sometimes means tough love.

30) Other rules that suggest themselves or seem neccesary can be voted, argued, discussed into the religion as ADDENDUMS.

Please join my religion. Thanks and god bless.
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Old 09-05-2015, 09:54 PM
 
18,909 posts, read 27,369,576 times
Reputation: 20228
Before posting, you need to do logical proof reading of your post. Your postulates contradict themselves quite often.

And why it always has to be "religion"? So that eventually shrines will be open, men will be walking in dresses and collecting wealth and the sacred precepts will be forgotten as always, for greed and lust of power?
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Old 09-06-2015, 02:36 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,729,723 times
Reputation: 36643
You lost me on #1. I cannot accept that "good" is absolute, and not relativistic defined from the bifurcated standpoint of man as an individual and a component of society. What is "good" for a remote star that is about to nova, an event exceeding in scope anything that can happen to all of mankind by uncountable orders of manitude?

Then #2 -- Leaving the fallacy of #1 unchallenged is a prerequisite.

No need to go on.
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Old 09-10-2015, 12:19 PM
 
Location: Prescott
424 posts, read 428,397 times
Reputation: 740
Quote:
Originally Posted by cachibatches View Post
This describes my values. All are welcome to join, but I am targeting American liberals who are not satisfied with the anti-religious stance of their own and conservatives who think that possibly their belief in god needs an update. Here are my 30 tenets. Possibly more to follow as this evolves.

1) There is a god, and he/she/it wants us to understand good in this world and ennact it.

2) Number 1 is self-evident. We dont waste time trying to prove it to anyone. If you are an athiest or agnostic, then go in peace. It you want our advice, fellowshipe and guidance, we are here for you.


7) If all of this sounds hard, it is. That is the point. Knowledge of good from bad is not as simple as opening up a book written thousands of years ago. It is not suppossed to be. It is a debate. It is a struggle. and thus, ours is a living religion open to ideas rather than dogmatic. We are informed by the past, not defined by it. God gives us hints, but he is not going to do the work for us. Perhaps even we can look at this as a constitution that is open to ammendment from its followers.

8) The world is filled with logical paradoxes, and we understand that. For example we want to be merciful to our enemies, but it is hardly merciful to our families and friends to allow our enemies to destory us. Thus, it is a discussion amongst ourselves as to when when it is most good to fight and most good to turn the cheek. Discussion is key. There is no completely right or wrong answer. The principle of paradox--beliefs contradicting, having multiple interpretations, or sometimes having to be mitigated--is not something that we run from. We face it. We do the best we can and acknowledge that sometimes we are going to be wrong.

9) We do not have prophets as we do not believe that god actually talks to anyone. I am sure as heck no holy man. I just want to set down some rules that we can all agree on.

10) Science is in no way in contradiction with our beliefs. Science is a method, not a religion or even a philopshy. Those scientists who try to impose their own beliefs about god one way or the other are not following their own method, and can pretty much be ignored. In any event, we are abandoning or at least downplaying the miraculous nature of past religion. I am not arguing to any scientist that anyone was risen from the dead or moved a mountian. Science is good and is another aspect of the mind of god. But its ability to guide in terms of morailty--how we live together and spread good--is limited.

11) Similarly, we include all sources of knowledge and all of those who have tried to increase knowledge in our discussion. Philosophers, artists, writers, poltiicians, activists, regular folks and all others can be holy people to us.

12) God is good. God is love. God is mercy. God is moral courage. God is not doing what is best not for yourself, but for people who are like you, people who are different, nature, and animals. God is increasing knoweldge, easing suffering, and making the world a better place.

13) We were put on this earth to leave it bettter than we found it.

14) We can take sympathetic members of traditional religions and philospohies as allies. There is no contraditcion (to us) for someone to say: "I am a Christian Neo-Desist," or "I am a Hindu Neo-Desits." We do not demand dogmatic adherance to our tenets. Sympathy breeds discussion, which is what will save the world.

15) We agree to disagree on things. At the end of the day, you have to decide what god wants from you. You are a free agent. We come together for discussion, influence, and agreement when possible.

16) For those who opose us, we differentiate between opponents and enemies. We use extreme moderation for those who are merely opponents. We discuss, debate, and act in friendly terms, never using hyperbloic rhetoric such as saying that they are "worse than Hitler" or "terrorists" or any such nonsense. For those who are genuine enemies, those who really are Hilters or terrorists, we still try every avenue of persuassion and conversion. Conflict may be neccesary as per rule 8, but it is a last resort and tempered with as much mercy as is possible.

17) No one can ask you to go agaisnt your conscience in serving god. If someone asks you to do something that you find abhorent, then the sin is on them.

18) I am not asking for money or anything else. This is anathema to my ideas about knowledge. Anyone asking from you money or actions in contradiction with your personal belies are wicked.

19) We do not have a strong hierarchy. Our leaders are good thinkers and speakers. There is no priest of our religion, only those that we admire. They can be women, men, gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, Asian...anything else as long as they inspire us to kindness and good moral choices.

20) No matter how bad things get, we remember that we were put on this earth for a purpose. Even if we don't understand it, even if we don't feel we got the chance we deserved, even if we see those who apparently did not have much chance at all, we keep soldiering on. This world is not about us, our egos, and our ense of entitlement, but how far we can futher the ball. Even children with cancer or those who are starving serve to inspire us to good works, and that is a contribution as great as any other.

21) You are entitled to your own beleifs about an afterlife. We can discuss, but will not argue them, since no one can present much evidence one way or the other. We are looking towards making this world better.

22) Our religion shall be friendly to gays. In defining proper relationships as only between man and women, we have perahps missed an opportunity to allow people to show love for each other. We have missed out their unique perspectives. We have missed out on an opportunity to treat those who are nominally different with kindess. In defining families as having only a traditional mother and father, we have missed an opportunity for orphans who would like to have familes and to be adopted by loving gay couples. We will not be "passively tolerant," but actively appreciate that god made our differances for reasons.

23) Men are made physically stronger than women, but a good man seeks a woman's council and holds her up as an equal, giving her all opportunity. Men and women are inherently different in many respects, and men are not without the advantages conferred by testosterone, but woman are undoubtedly less impetuous, less violent, more merciful and in many ways closer to some of the virtues that we are talking about. We should find solutions to make women's lives more fullfilling, including looking at motherhood as a legitimate thing to cite on a job resume, so that they do not have to chose between careers and family. This should not be a man's world or a woman's world, but all of our world.

24) Women's rights will save the world-literally. Overpopulation is what is killing the planet, destroying species, and turning paradise into desert. We see time and again that when women are given the right to chose career, they have less children. Women's rights is not only what is right, but what is right for the world.

25) As for men, they need guidance. Testosterone is powerful. It is a huge creative force in history, but it needs to be reinged in, and not just through sports. Boys and young men need help focusing their energy. We are failing them in this departement in this modern world becasue we have no rules no stanadards, no expectations in 21st century American and elsewhere. For several generations now, men have been taught that the world is a playground and that they should never grow up. We will insist on moral guiance and structure for our young men.

26) We will fail in our lofty attempts. This is hard. We will always go back to the drawing board. Similary, we do not denounce others as hypocrits lightly. No one is perfect. No one can adhere perectly to their beliefs.

27) Should intelligent alien life be discovered, it will in no way negate our beliefs, but we will invite them to share in our fellowship so long as it is safe to do so. It does not make sense that god created a nearly infinite universe only for us.

28) It goes without saying that there is no such thing as race, only different types of beauty.

29) There are, however, diffferent cultures, and we do no one any favors when we don't point out to them their own self destructive behavior, both in America and out. When we see a culture that does not value hard work, individual rights, rule of reason, rule of law, or that does value criminality, violence, misogyny, dependence or other perverse values, we will say so. We will not be afraid of the slings and arrows that come our way. Love sometimes means tough love.

30) Other rules that suggest themselves or seem neccesary can be voted, argued, discussed into the religion as ADDENDUMS.

Please join my religion. Thanks and god bless.


LOL..."New?" Hardly. You stated not ONE original theological or Deist idea. At least not that I could see.

A person calling themselves a Liberal Christian would adapt most of what you said in your OP. For that matter, so would most agnostics, or even Secular humanists. Or anybody who is A-Thiest, but still entertains notions of a possible Deist God. Like me.

So would most plain old Agnostics. Or Deists. Your claim of "neo" means little. It's all been said before, amigo. And the last thing we need is another religion in this world. We need LESS.

Also you have some holes in your Theology. God is "good?" LOL, define Good. And He only intervenes sometimes? Why? What is His criteria for intervening? Why all the evil and violence on "good" people? How does your god decide who is worth intervening for? If your God CAN intervene to stop the thousands of children dying of malaria every year, or other diseases. Or a Christian father of three being killed by an Atheist drunk driver, but yet Chooses NOT to intervene, then he is not a Good God. And not worthy of my worship. And if He CANNOT intervene, he is not all-powerful, thus is also not worthy of worship.

Your theology solved nothing and brought nothing at all new to the table. So why would anybody want to join? Name one reason. One advantage? Why should I not remain an Agnostic, with my own ideas on a possible Afterlife or even a Deist, non-personal God? I just see nothing attractive about your Theology. It's watered down Christianity with a little sprinkle of New Agey humanism tossed in for flavor.

A recipe that leaves me very luke warm.
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