JAMES_H_CARRINGTON@HP-Chelmsford-om1.om.hp.com wrote:
> My jewish friends (that I have had theological discussions with) do
(snip)
James,
This is a very interesting issue. I must confess to having written
several posts on this over the last week or so and never having sent any
of them except for the one on chauvinism. I couldn't get past my anger
over the past five generations of my family and how...... See I still do
it.
The word "religion" is an interesting word. Its roots are diffuse but one
of the roots means "to bind up" and I think that is what this does to us.
There is a huge problem between Messianic and Non-Messianic religions that
bind us all up. There is also a problem between the Messianic religions
that believe the "world" Messiah has arrived and those who do not. We
cover all of this up with words and more words but it gets down to these
dis-agreements that people kill each other over. So what can we do here?
I have a few suggestions, not meant to solve the "bound up" problem or the
problem with retention but that might make the dialogue as Barry Mallis
points out, more respectful.
1. Don't speak for any group other than your own except to ask a question.
2. Always remember that when you speak, most will blame your group for
your opinions about religion. They will either credit them or blame them.
So temper your words to maintaining balance for others of your group who
may wish to join the discussion.
3. Don't profess to disbelief while praising the result of the belief that
you disbelieve. Simply state your own belief and relate it to the
subject. Mental models are not always bad.
4. Ask yourself what you get by staking out turf in opposition to another
group.
5. If a process that is found in a spiritual belief is appropriate to a LO
then state the underlying process first then give credit if you wish. Are
there not as many different roads to a dignified life as there are
individuals? Why not give credit to what helped you personally succeed?
That is simply good manners in my mind.
6. If what helped someone succeed was toxic or even murderous to your life
or your relatives, then state it simply and without rancor then get beyond
that toxicity for the sake of the dialogue. Otherwise we have one of
those dis-functional situations that I described earlier that results in
the loss of a talented point of view.
7. Assume that all points of view are necessary to the reaching of the
goal. That the "death" of one point of view will probably keep the task
from being accomplished.
8. When you are staking out turf for religious tolerance and feeling proud
of your toleration of other points of view then remember that to date the
most tolerant religious kingdom in the world was led by Gengis Khan.
Everyone prospered as long as they didn't cross the Great Khan.
I did not say these to preach or instruct but merely to ruminate. Maybe I
can make the point more clearly with a story from a ceremony that our
religion did last month to rebury some of our ancestors who were exhumed
by the course of civilization.
After the ceremony and reburial we were sitting and listening to a master
baroque flute player psycho-therapist play a traditional flute with a
different tuning from the normal Western scales. He said that the hardest
thing that he had to do in playing another instrument was to let IT decide
where the music was. He said that he "had to try NOT to put Bach into the
traditional native flute." The systems were different. Each was relevant
to its own reality and each reality could negate the other.
But we humans can play anything that we can learn to leave alone in its
own reality and just be with it. We can even learn to create within it if
we are submissive to its rules.
Regards,
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York
mcore@idt.net
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>