Kipahni's comments (member since May 11, 2008)

Kipahni's comments from the Faith and Spirituality group.

All good points that I have recently begun to study myself, however I have come to a wall and since you are professing what I am assuming either a christian or liberal christian view perhaps you coud furth expound.
If we don't need saving, what's the point of Jesus?

okay here is the link
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Create Your Life Your Relationships and Your World in Harmony with Your Values

okay gonna add another I just finished reading.
Non-violent Communication. Apply it to your life and prepare to see significant change.

Great books, I added some to my to read list. I had to think really long on this. so here is the list, subject to modification; 1 John from the bible (because I think it captures the core meaningful point of the whole bible, which is to just love), The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Shane Claiborn (I like his semi-socialist ideas), Out of solitude, Henri Nowen (my introduction of the idea of quieting the spirit), The Zen teachings of Jesus, Kenneth Leong (helped me recognize how closely religions mirror each other), chirunning danny dryer (my introduction into chi living) A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson, and Sex and the Origions of Death William Clark (these last two books helped me decide in the validity of evolution.)

either because there must have been books that made you decide not to be spiritual.
I use the word world view just so that I could include those who do not consider themself spiritual.
your spirituality (or lack of) shapes your world view

Books can be a powerful object that opens your mind to new ideas and shape your perspectives. I was curious to see what are the various books that shaped the worldview of those here in this group.

RGB- I agree with you that society is moving to a more reason oriented and away from believing in ancient myths.

However I don't think you will see a complete movement there until you eradicate poverty. In the village I live in, it is harsh, violent and demanding. Religion/Spirituality is what they turn to to explain the unknowables. When you're busy trying to survive it doesn't really leave time to dwell on thoughts about if there is a God or moral rights and wrongs.

Get rid of poverty and meet the first baisic need in maslows heirarchy and then I think would see a more humanistic society.

good point nathan. I looked up the book and it seems like a credible source. I will have to read it when I get back to the states.

Nathan thanks for the reference, I will look it up. I only called it harsh because I would think the actions that you described would be extremely sensational news that any media would want to cover and yet it hasn't been. Considering the only coverage we do hear about mother theresa is only her saintly actions, anything opposite in that light would seem "harsh"

nathan those are some pretty harsh accusations, do you mind posting where you got such information?

so would you like to outlaw faith?

To be honest it is hard for me to picture a world without faith. I was an oncology nurse for a few years and out of the hundreds of patients I had I didn't meet one atheist, because when you are facing deaths door everyone wants to believe(or blame) something.

"This is probably true, but for the life of me I can't think of an example. "

Khmere Rouge, Stalin, Mao Zedong. (sorry for picking on communism but they are anti-religion examples)

I am with you Robin on instead of trying to get rid of religion it's better to try and change the system for the better.
Religion/faith will be with us for a long time. I guess the only way that religion or faith could probably go away is when every un-answerable question is answered and proved (why am I here, where do I go when I die ect.)
Until then, People will cling to faith for these answers (whether rational or not).

I am curious though, how will you know what Good is without some absolute truth? Without some moral guideline.

Example: I am an American nurse living in Egypt, There are many things that culturally egyptians do that are viewed as "good" but that I find appalling. FGM is one of them (female genital mutilation) THis is not a religious practice but considered a hygenic one that also proves a girl is virginal.
Because I view it as not good, do I impose my views, or do I through up my hands and say "to each his own" while they go on doing an ancient pratice that thousands of girls endure between the ages of 3-12?

"Doesn't this show the weakness of god? No one can even agree on what it is that they are talking about when they talk about god."

I don't think it shows a weakness of God. Get three scientest together and they wouldn't agree on the age of the earth or how it came, but it still doesn't dispute the fact that there is an earth.

Are you asking faith in religion or faith in anything?

And don't we all have a little faith. I mean at least by my definition of "trusting unseen things"

Americans have faith in the american dollar (which is technically worthless because it is no longer backed by gold only the governments promise it is worth something) so I am trusting in an unseen thing there when I save my money that is might be worth something when I am retired.

We have faith that GRavity will keep us from floating away (yes gravity can be evident when you drop a ball but you don't actually see it. Much like G-d, people feel evidence in their life but they don't see it)

I have faith in people. Even though there is no evidence that I should. Humankind murders, rapes, steals,cheats and whatever else you can think of. yet I still have faith that people can be good. Or when you are sick and go to the hospital you have faith that the staff knows what they are doing, or if you are in trouble you have faith that when you call 911 the cops will come.

Faith becomes dangerous when you use it to justify horrible actions. However, it is not the only thing that is used to make such actions. Joseph Stalin killed millions of people, had nothing to do with faith but political ideology. Mao Zedong, The Khmere Rouge, again nothing to do with faith. Just mean, evil people doing horrible things. (I am not trying to pick on communist either, but I am just trying to make a point that non-faith organizations have created horrible acts too. THough it could be argued that one must have "faith" in such a government inorder for it to work)
And that is my point, Humanity has always had a mean streak whether it's related to faith or not.
Faith is what some people choose to use as a way to explain why these bad things happen and how one can cope with such meaningless autrocities.

all very interesting thoughts.
I figure I will answer my own question.
I really had no idea how I viewed roles in a relationship until I sat down and talked it over with my future spouse (just a little back story, we had a sort of modern day arranged marriage, religiously I guess you could call me a Hybrid of faiths, he on the other hand is probably closest to what americans would consider evangelical, but a christian in Egypt has a different set of mores and traditions than one in America sort of)

So anyway there are two main themes I have picked up with his culture in regards to marriage and that is, Purity and Honor.
In a middle eastern world it is extremely important to always do the Honorable thing, and for a girl this means to remain pure (unfortunately this has given way to the practice of FGM, which was just outlawed 2 years ago)
So part of the marriage and it's surrounding ceremonies celebrate the idea of purity. Also in this religious culture, Family is number 1, so a guy isn't considered a man until he is married and a girl isn't considered a woman until she has children! Traditionally there are set roles but this is slowly changing in Egyptian society as well.

Personally I think marriage is a life long commitment between 2 people that connect in such a way that is an awesome physical example of the image of G-d and the desire to be one with us.

I am preparing for an upcoming cross-culture, sort of inter-faith marriage and this had me thinking about how important death, marriage, rites of passages (ect) are to different faiths.

So my question is how does your Faith/Spirituality view marriage? What are some of the traditions or views that your faith play as far as roles in a marriage?

Really not just in marriage but of death as well. In what ways does your faith help you process or view death or other rights of passage?

Ya I see the point of the sacrifice it is the significance of blood that is a mystery to me. like blood is not magical and I highly doubt that G-d uses it (but I could be wrong)
So I think it must be symbolic in some way.

I so get your question about Jesus's death sally. Because I have often wondered this myself. I could be wrong but Why would G-d want a blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of man. Wouldn't that just make him like the other gods of that time, Baal, Melek, Dagon ect?
But I think it is all in the symbolism. I mean animal sacrifices were a central part to ancient Judaism that in order for the people of that time to get the importance of christ he had to become a sacrifice as well.
At least this is how I make sense of it in my mind.

robin- I am so glad that you pointed out that there are grays in life. Really if there were no grays in life then lawyers, ethics, and religious leaders would all be out of a job.