Kontakion

Well I have to say that I feel like I'm going crazy. Its now 9:11 in the morning and I have been up doing homework for the last 2 1/2 hours. I have done everything from reading St. Augustine to examining the book of Galatians for a paper. At this time in the morning I find myself questioning the viability of liberal christianity. This is a constant struggle that I have been in since my CMR two weeks ago. I have struggled with this issue over the last several months but it has come to a head for me in the last two weeks. Growing up I was evangelical/fundamentalist and to speak honestly I miss those days sometimes. Not because they were fun, by far they were not. I lived in perpetual fear of going to hell I was always trying to live righteously for God. It was a difficult way to live. I felt constantly pressured by the church and by family to live as they saw was right. What I miss about being evangelical/fundamental is the sense of purpose. There is a feeling of being a cohesive uni

I've decided now to finish up the rest on the humanist manifesto 1 here. There are two reasons for this one is I'm taking away study time to do this, and the other is I thought it would make more sense to speak on the very few things that I disagree with for the last few points. By in large I agree with the other twelve points of the humanist manefesto. The very few disagreements that I had are with points six and eleven. With point six I still roughly hold to a type of Deism I think. While I tend not to teach or preach any type of deism what I belive is that I cannot exlain this thing we call God whatever that maybe. So I don't know if that excluedes me from this point or not. Point eleven while I agree that sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking are things to be discouraged, sometime these things are nessacary. Lives of faithful people in various times in history seem to prove this for me. An example would be something like a Jew in WWII Germany. Whil

Well this past week was pretty rough for me. Aparantly I let know my frustration with Christianity at the wrong time as normal. This semester part of our assignment for one class is to write our Critical Ministry Review paper. This paper is to express our belief on particular doctrines and our view of the ministry. So I just wrote this paper and then promply got some very harsh criticism on it in my class. Aparently not only did I not write the paper right but as far as I'm concerned we are not really able to express as an individual where I am truley at. Part of the expressed belief about this paper is that it would be a theological "snap shot" of where the individual is currently at. When I expressed where I was at it was quite obvious that I was frustrated with Christianity, others would say angry. I had begun to deconstruct my Christian beliefs well over a year and a half ago. The expressed purpose of the first year in seminary is to deconstruct the persons w

Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected. I agree with this statment in general, the only question I have is what about an afterlife. I am assuming that this statment is ment to exclude the possibity of an afterlife due to the fact that because mind and body are one there can be no separation of them after death therefore when we die we die. I can and do agree with this because I have no evidence that says there is an afterlife inwhich people have to look forward to, also I do know of the scientific evidence in how a blow to the head can change a persons personality, thus does it change them? Also that when there is no mental funcitoning then there isn't a personality as we would see or describe it. While I agree with all of this I still tenaciously hold onto my own faith in an afterlife. While I would not teach on this nor have a qualifiying factor inorder to get into this afterlife the only evidence I have

Well I probably just had one of the nicest experience of my life. I don't even think "nicest" is the best way to discribe it, may be awe-some in the true sense of the word. This afternoon I had a meeting for my UCC polity class, I had to meet with several of the students to talk about a role playing 'game' that we are going to be participating in. Because I was watching Olivia ment that she got to come with me. When the meeting was done we came outside and it was just pouring rain. Olivia and I came home and sat on our front porch and watched the rain. Because I have grown up partly deaf and at the moment it seems that trait has not been passed on to Olivia I found myself telling her to listen to the rain. It is amazing how all the people her and I watched walking up and down the road weren't listening to the rain. I hope and pray that she understands the significance of hearing the rain. Her and I sat there for an hour with no noise except the occaion

Humanism Belives that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process . For me there is no real problem here, science today has generally afirmed this and I see no conflict with this particular view. In years ago I would have been very up set at the very notion of evolution being apart of human exsistance would have sent me into an angry discourse on the evils of science. Now I have practically no qulams with saying yup in probably happened that way. ------------------------------------------------- In other news for me, today I get to send with Olivia because I've gotten enough class work done to be able to spend time with her. We've watched a show on the 7 wonders of the world and are now playing in our bouncing chair creating alot of noise but its wonderful. Class work continues as always with alot of concentration being poured into what most often seems unecessary. So far this semester the most interesting class is church history whic

I read Shawns post over a lofitribe and remembered my commitment to examining my stance in light of the Humanist Manifest. More to the point I am seeing if I am possibly a religious humanist. While my writings on the first 15 points of the Humanist Manifesto 1 maybe sporadic because of school work my goal is an examination of my current views in light of the Manifesto. This may prove interesting because I have to also write my CMR (Church Ministry Review) for school in which I examin my belifes on 9 various doctrinal stances. So I imagine some of that will be coming out here as well. "Religious humanist regard the universe as self-existing and not created." This is the part "a" of the Manifest that I am dealing with. I am not entirely sure how to take this. As I understand it this is a statment against creationsim, that is they are claiming that matter has aways exsited and will continue to exsist. I can in fact agree with that statment. However I may agree