RE: OT Re: RELIGION: intuition

[Guest guest]

>-----Original Message-----

>From:

>[mailto: ]On Behalf Of José-

>

>Do you know what _feijoada_ is? It's the most typical Brazilian dish.

>It includes a lot of ingredients: cured and fresh meats, rice, beans,

>cabbage, manioc flour, spices, oranges, etc... It's delicious, but

>reputedly very heavy. And not a very simple preparation anyway. It

>may take a lot of hours and work to get it ready. Very few people

>indeed are capable of making it, and even fewer will accept the

>challenge to. But we have a saying here: " I don't need to know how to

>make feijoada to tell if it tastes good or not. "

>

>Pretty much the same may apply to Religion. I don't need to know all

>the facts (and who knows them all, by the way?) to judge its value at

>least for me.

Hi ,

Let's put aside for a moment the fact that never said one must know

ALL the facts in order to judge a religion. I'm just curious. Do you think

it's best to understand the foundational principles behind a certain belief

system before judging its merits, or that one can judge it just as

accurately not understanding those principles?

> I may be ignorant, but wasn't born yesterday, was I?

None of us were yet we are all ignorant of many topics that we have not

spent much time or thought studying or engaging in. Or of topics that we

think we know, having spent some thought and time engaging in them, only to

find out later, as we learn more, that there is much more we do not know. I

am ignorant of many of the laws of physics, of electrical engineering, of

how to write music, of Islam, even of the cultures of South Asia even though

that was my major in college and I studied in Nepal.

>

>There's another saying which I think is particularly true in the

>context: " Outsiders can often see better what is really going on. " If

>you play chess, you know what I'm talking about.

Are you suggesting you know better what's going on in the Church than those

within the church do?

>

>But here's possibly one more obstacle for me to join any established

>Religion, which is aggravated by my aging condition. You know what I

>mean? I don't want to offend anyone, but it's about shame. Picture

>yourself: a man over 50, whom life has made me into this hardy and

>proud (but not self-conceited, mind you) skeleton, now having to

>listen to and learn everything again (from scratch?) from certainly

>the younger and possibly more learned? Can such a man abdicate from

>his earned position, at his own peril, pretend to be _tabula rasa_

>and not feel like a fool? Isn't it too late for him? Wouldn't he have

>all the reason on earth to feel ashamed? Well, maybe that would be

>the mysterious force of faith and determination. Do I lack it myself?

>I don't know if anyone can empathize with me or not.

Well I do. I'm not much younger than you and have recently begun my journey

toward something much greater than myself, which has required putting my ego

aside (a very, very difficult task which I've not mastered). But not without

a lot of fussing and fighting and kicking and screaming and skepticism. Go

to onibasu and you can see it over the past year or so right here on this

list! But I was coming at it as an outsider and was recklessly importing my

own presuppositions and biases into what I was seeing and judging as an

outsider. Only after a great deal of internal struggle over many, many

months was I able to put my own presuppositions aside, and better see the

Church for how it defined itself, and understand its practices (not

perfectly, but better). Originally I did not, and, having imported my own

pressupostions into it, assumed it was merely an oppressive humanistic

patriarchal tradition that I was judging.

>

>, even if that wasn't your objective, I was made to feel like

>a fool after reading your post.

Awwww...don't feel like that . You're clearly NOT a fool and I'm

certain doesn't see you as one. It is very difficult to debate a

subject with someone who has an immense knowledge of that subject and is

literally an award-winning debator on top of it! ;-) I have yet to see

anyone " win " a debate with on anything to do with Christianity,

myself included. And I most certainly DID make a fool of myself with this

topic more than once right here on this list. LOL! But I don't think

anyone's going to mistake you for a fool :-)

BTW, I've learned several new words from you in English, which is my native

tongue and not yours! Gotta respect a non-native speaker with an exquisite

vocabulary such as you have.

Anyway, I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for. Bon Voyage :-)

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

“The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times.” --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------

[Guest guest]

José-,

Welcome back next week. I haven't forgotten this message and this idea

that if we are not on the inside, then we don't know anything about

religion (or any other topic for that matter). Of course, it is faulty

reasoning, but I will give depth to this soon enough. I do have one

more week to reply, yes?

How are you on your return from holiday? Well I do hope.

yours,

Deanna