I cannot resist to comment a few sentences on what Judith Weiss understood
to be a "Religious flame war". (My experience was more that of a dialog,
may be some discussion in it.)
What did I learn from the "religious discussion"?
- New perspectives I haven't heard before (Don Kerr)
- A common intention of goodness
- A common feeling, that learning has to do with the whole person including
a spiritual level.
- I found the puzzle of good persons beyond good and evil (B-persons as I
called) quite instructive for me and I got the idea as an inspiration while
thinking about this discussion.
>But the phrase "Judeo-Christian,"
>and the thinking that usually accompanies it, treats my people as a
>vestigial appendix to Christianity; it is inaccurate and disrespectful.
"the thinking that usually accompanies it"? In which context "usually"?
Not in my mind or any that I am aware of. May be Germany is different
after the experience of the 3rd Reich, I learned from Martin Buber and
Shalom Ben Chorin - Judaism is the base of Christianity.
"Christianity" has a comparable problem: Roman Katholic or Protestant
(which type?) or other... So many differences. Two persons... So many
differences. On the other hand what about the term "Monotheistic
religions" including Islam to Judaism and Christianity? Isn't it provoking
especialy today, where many people (usual thinking?) locate the evil in
Islam - Hamas, holy war - to include Islam into a community of
"Monotheistic Religions"?
Looking for the common and acknowledge the differences. The world is
facing huge systemic problems. No peace in the world without peace among
the religions. What a great learning experiment!
I think, from this kind of discussion we can learn about shared visions
and the engagement of the individual visions for the common. Shared vision
of all religions ("parliament of religions" - I can look for informations
on this if you like) and individual vision of each religion is not so
different from the shared visions of a group and the individual visions of
the people in that group.
And one can learn about flexibility of mental models and the emotional
energy hold by fixed mental models (otherwise offending would just be
impossible).
If there is anything in this mail, which is offending, please give me a
feedback. Nothing like this is intended!
Winfried
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>