Category Archives: Religion

Unfinished Business

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֎ Speculations about the future of Christianity drew interest. If the Trinity disappears, Armageddon will ensue. Mariner is not in a position to reconcile such a difficult question so he will throw some logs on the fire.

Log 1 – In the local newspaper today was an article about a Roman Catholic priest here in the US. He was in deep trouble because many parishioners had to re-baptize their babies because the priest said, “We baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Turns out the Vatican said this is improper because it is the spirit of Jesus only who baptizes; the priest should have said ‘I’. Calculate the amount of grace, dare mariner say God’s grace, that was demonstrated in the strict interpretation. Define aquarium. Define spiritual.

Log 2 – Just in his small town mariner counted five people who never go to church but are known for their good works and their commitment to help others. One of these people is older than mariner and when there is a snowstorm will get out his tractor and clear 19 driveways in town, mostly those who cannot do it themselves. Can the two Great Commandments be defined in other belief systems that do not have a spiritual deity?

Log 3 – There is a hairdresser who takes one workday each week to work in retirement homes. Does this woman go to church? Define Holy Spirit.

– – – –

On to other matters:

More companies are using AI-led video interviews to assess job candidates before a human recruiter even meets them. Some automated programs evaluate not just on answers to questions, but sometimes on facial expressions, intonation and word choice.

Remember Nadine?

 

Here in Iowa mariner had another snowstorm yesterday. The ground is covered in snow and ice; bitter breezes prevail; many winter chores remain undone. Nevertheless, four weeks from now the early vegetables like lettuce can be planted; is the asparagus bed ready? Clean the greenhouse and pots; repair garden tools. Get ready, gardeners.

Ancient Mariner

 

2000 Century Trends

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Below are random thoughts collected from mariner’s alter egos about trends in society and history that are too large to be noticed daily and so slow in impact that, today at least, they don’t matter.

֎ Migration from the coasts.  Axios, an online news source, reports that a trend is well underway which involves a significant number of people relocating from the coasts and current centers of commerce to twenty heartland states. Three major causes are the ability to work from home, the internet enables large corporations to relocate for tax purposes and an awareness of the impact of global warming on the coasts – ocean levels are expected to rise one foot by 2050. Map below:

Mariner mentions this trend because it is a shift in winds by the nation’s cultural ideology about what it means to be successful. Since the 1960s one was considered upwardly mobile and successful if they were able to escape the local scene and become part of the world of big-time success, typically large corporations, universities and the world of the Fortune 500. One could ask whether today’s working class (including the trumpers) will ever again be the center of the nation’s work ethic, will ever again bask in the glory days of Rosie the Riveter and the political influence of the AFL/CIO. In the future one wonders where the collective identity of a U.S. citizen will emerge – given the isolating characteristics of working from home and the extensive automation of manufacturing. In the future what cultural characteristic will define a successful individual?

֎ The disappearance of Christianity. Among the major religions of the world, Christianity is the most spiritual. To be a Christian requires an eagerness to put aside one’s own sense of accomplishment and replace it with enabling success in others. The theological basis is a spiritual relationship – a partnership – with God, Jesus and the human Christian; scripturally called the Trinity. In 2014 Paul Harvey, a conservative talk show host on radio, said “Too many Christians are no longer fishers of men, but the keepers of the aquarium.” – clearly a recognition of an evaporating spiritual element in Christianity.

For many decades religious thinkers have pondered what will replace Christianity. Will it be atheism? Will it be humanism? Will it be naturalism? Will it be, in a computer-driven society, determinism? Will a new age of theocracy emerge? Each of these ideologies has a similar ethical structure, essentially endorsing a grand order from which morality can be deduced but not necessarily from an anthropomorphic deity driven by spirituality. Like the national identity of success, Christianity is a deeply rooted characterization of most U.S. citizens. What will replace the spirituality provided by Christianity? Will church buildings go the way of public telephone booths? What unchanging, overarching principle will guide humanity in the simulated world of artificial intelligence?

֎ Economic theory. Since the beginning, Homo sapiens’ habitat has been one, most of the time, that has allowed a constant increase in the number of humans in the world. There was always another natural resource to leverage, always a new way to profit as a species, always a new intellectual device to increase production beyond human capability.

Along with a period of unusually long and stable planetary weather, the environment allowed three primary economic theories to work: capitalism, socialism and communism. Granted, there are unending political ways to manage these theories from dictatorships to democracies but only these three economic theories can leverage the natural resources in a manner that is sustainable. The number of humans has long surpassed survivability based on hunting/gathering and family labor.

Today the human population has grown past 7 billion on its way to what many scientists from different disciplines believe, given natural resources, is a maximum capacity of 11 billion. Add to population issues the issue of global warming and a reduced need for labor in an automated world and one begins to wonder what food will be available? What income will be available? How will banking and supply economics work as resources diminish on a person-to-person basis? What is the future of capitalism when there is no longer an opportunity to increase profit? Will underfed socialism lead to an era of war and domination?

Humans may not be wiped out by a meteor like the dinosaurs were, but humans may experience a rapid transition as the combination of profiteering, extreme weather and resource depletion come together to form a new age.

Ancient Mariner

 

The Constitution of the Christian Faith – 2

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Jesus continues by addressing the Greatest Commandments and demonstrating how to invoke the Holy Spirit with the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

IIIb  THE GREATEST COMMANDMENTS

Mark 12:28-31

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

֎ To demonstrate these responsibilities, Jesus selects a situation that has confrontational aspects to it: the story of the Good Samaritan.

IIIc  THE GOOD SAMARITAN

LUKE 10:30-37.

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, 34 and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

36 “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37

He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

֎ While still within the Jewish faith, Samaritans had a set of differences with Jews that was deep rooted and reflected a class difference in Israel. There were several religious differences between Samaritans and Jews. Just one example had to do with the role of the Savior:

The Samaritans await “The Restorer”, whom they call the Taheb—a prophet who will establish a period of peace and justice. The Jews, of course, awaited the Messiah, who would overthrow the Romans and give them back their land.

These differences, while seemingly minute to some, were the basis for a division that existed between Jews and Samaritans for thousands of years and still separates them today. Figuratively speaking, today the Samaritan would be a member of a black activist group and the beaten man would be a white supremacist.

 

TBC

Ancient Mariner

Nearer My Casket to Thee

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Mariner just saw a frightening news clip on CBSN (ROKU). Robot puppies that look like the Paw Patrol cartoons are displacing real dog ownership. It reminds him of the perverts who live with sex dolls and people who marry suggestions from a manipulated database or the adults in a doctor’s office playing mind killing smartphone games.

Say goodbye to reality. Fantasy sells. Benignness sells. Stupor sells. Laziness sells.

If someone wants a dog, buy a real one dammit. Matrix lives.

Remember pet rocks? At least it was seen as a joke – although as mariner’s wife noted, some people name their automatic vacuum cleaner. Mariner’s wife provides a poem:

On learning that people who name their Roombas have a hard time
throwing them away:

Ah, little Roomba, Roomie-Roo
I love how you clean my floors
Diligently sucking up all the fluff you can find
and then scooting across the room
bumping against the chair leg
backing and turning
to dart off in another direction
Like an eager little puppy
who does the opposite of shedding,
chasing in your funny way
all the dusty bunnies hiding in the corners.
I don’t just love the work you do, little Roomie Roo
I love your friendly presence and helpful attitude
And when at last your lithium battery goes off somewhere to die
As happens to the best of us,
You will always have a home
In the closet of my heart.

MKM 4-20-21

All this reminds mariner of the Pew Christian who thinks one hour every seven days does it. Should we fear the coming of mesmerizing God robots? Preacher robots are just around the corner – or already here in podcast services.

If people want numbness, take opiates.

Ancient Mariner

 

The Constitution of the Christian Faith

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(part of a pamphlet mariner is writing)

The Constitution of the Christian Faith

I  God

There is but one God, the creator of all dimensions, all material living and inanimate. God and God’s creation are inseparable.

God maintains order in all of existence, giving order and dependency to all processes. God’s will is delivered through love for God’s creation.

God endowed the human species and similar creatures with the ability to use God’s love in a manner that increases God’s presence – order and dependency can be enhanced or denigrated by their behavior.

II  The Trinity

The Trinity is a description of the relationship between God, Jesus of Nazareth and the human race. The typical expression is ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit’.

Jesus was an individual who understood the manifestations of God’s love and the power it could invoke. Jesus understood clearly the responsibility humans have to sustain order and dependency in God’s creation. His knowledge of God and God’s love was beyond the normal abilities of other humans.

It is through Jesus and his teachings about God that humans learned they have a role in the Trinity. When humans act in a manner that enhances God’s love, they are participating in the spirit of God’s love, when they use God’s love they are the Holy Spirit in action.

III  Definitions for participating in the Trinity

Virtually all of Jesus’ knowledge about God is captured in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. Certain passages stand out as a guideline by which to express the spirit of God’s will. They are reproduced below.

IIIa  The Beatitudes

MATTHEW 5:1-16.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.

15 “Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

֎ Generally, the Beatitudes imply that existential comfort and personal reward are not part of the value system. Rather, it is association with God’s love and invoking that love that really counts. When we act in accordance with God’s standard and therefore expand God’s grace in the world, we are fulfilling our role in the Trinity – we are the Holy Spirit.

 

TBC intermittently.

Ancient Mariner

Theology for the twenty-first century

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Religion hasn’t been a subject on the blog recently. Religious belief, theology, morality, however one chooses to label it, has suffered ideologically right along with democracy, freedom and equality over in the political arena. What passes for theologically-based practice today is far removed from even a century ago, not even considering Holy Bible definitions. Just as with political ideology, religion is not a closed club, nor an autocracy of legal practices.

Let’s start with basics: How many of us have quoted God? How many have said, “God thinks . . .” If so, we have strayed from a proper twenty-first century relationship with our deity. God doesn’t ‘think’. God is. Gods of any religion are ultimate forces of existence, time, infinite power and the reason anything physical exists –including everything in the past and the future. God doesn’t have to think. God already knows. We are required to think, not God.

To offer a simple analogy, consider that God is a large brick wall. A person walks up to the wall and tries to break the wall. That person may end up with skin abrasions, wasted time and maybe even some broken fingers. The wall did nothing; it was just being a wall. An observer watching nearby comments, “The wall punished the person for trying to damage it.” Obviously, the wall didn’t have to think but the beat up wall abuser should have.

Unfortunately, humans being humans, they are highly susceptible to interpreting every phenomenon as if it were the product of human reason and human emotion. There is a popular theology around today that says every person has a god who thinks just like they do and has the same opinions. Somewhat convenient, each person belongs to a god-club where all their gods have similar opinions. One can see how putting people’s opinions in the driver’s seat has the same effect as raiding the Capitol on January 6 or in ignorance challenging the properties of a brick wall.

Gods have three qualities that humans can recognize:

1- omniscience, a fancy word that means God has no limits in any dimension or under any assumption. God is, was, will always be and is the essence of all existence. This characteristic is critical if God is to be the source of a common ethical value for all things living and nonliving.

2- God neither blesses nor forgives, nor punishes – just like the brick wall. It is the human mind that, like the bystander above, must judge cause and effect in human terms; the wall punished the attacker; the wall protects the home; the wall grants peace of mind. The proper interaction with God is to measure one’s own contribution to the wellbeing and sustenance of God’s kingdom, that is, one is measured by respect for and supportive effort to perceived reality.

Recent political awareness about the fact that humans are upsetting the planet’s priorities is a good example of recognizing that humans have been attacking the ‘wall’ called biosphere. Also becoming unusually evident is the problematic division between the well-to-do and the not-well-to-do, an unnatural circumstance that is both extreme and global in nature. What must humans do to rectify their relationship with God’s creation? As with the person who attacked the wall and was ‘punished’ for it, so, too, do humans suffer by their own accord when in conflict with God’s creation.

3- The third recognizable characteristic is a feature called ‘grace’. Whenever a person does a good thing for another person, creature, the planet or prevents damage by any definition, there is a strong reassurance of the self, a sense of completion, of being on God’s team, a positive feeling of personal growth. We are no different from any living creature that assures the great morality called God.

Ancient Mariner

It is time.

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Mariner, for the sake of sanity, has stepped back from daily behavioral response to frightful, deliberately agitating news programs. Saner are selected on-line news sources, books and magazines. He is careful, as a citizen, to maintain his obligation to a national democracy; he is responsible to elect meaningful representatives to HIS government.

But mariner has begun to wonder. Is democracy becoming old fashioned? Is it the right philosophy of government for an era where international politics are growing more influential than national politics? Is the new global economy too expensive for a typical citizen to invest in and participate? Will each nation simply play the role of a labor union to reconcile humanistic virtues vis-à-vis international corporate politics? Will, in fact, super-sized corporations replace national governments? Who will govern the corporations?

As though to tease our brains, many of these questions already have emerging answers that seem to be pulling everyone into an age of supersizing – certainly causing stress on religion, secularism, humanism and the old fashioned descriptions of capitalism, socialism and communism. At the moment, without exception, the new frontier is fed and run by money.

Immediately important today is our concept of taxation. The rich have won the war on taxation: the richer one is, the less percentage tax they pay to the point of paying none; the same with corporations. It is the excessive wealth among a few that can launch a global plutocracy.

Ironically, the distrust between citizens has led to populism and identity politics, in effect dividing citizens one against the other while the rich unify their economic purposes.

If humans are to remain the significant influencer in human history, it may be that democracy is the last defense against authoritarian oligarchy. Democracy depends on an identity that evolves from human ethic while authoritarian oligarchy vacuums profit that denies human ethic. An excellent example is that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have the finances to underwrite a useless trip into the solar system while billions of humans live stressed, inadequate lives.

In short, our defense is to unify, to become one human force that controls its ethical experience. It is not a time to destroy democratic election processes; it is not a time to quibble over a measly trillion (many individuals in the world could pay out a trillion by themselves). It is not time to pretend superiority by hiding behind race and other social issues. It is time to defend the very core of humanity.

Will someone tell the electorate?

Ancient Mariner

Evangelical Similarities

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At the top of the news these days is the social conflagration occurring in Afghanistan. Women are being shoved out of a male dominated, religiously-based power structure that will run the nation and its culture for the foreseeable future. Ironically, a similar situation exists in the United States where religious denominations suffer the same ‘divine male power’ syndrome.

The book that delves into this issue is ‘Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation’ by Kristin Kobes du Mez. The book documents ideas about masculinity in the white Evangelical church and its politics which, while not as violent or intrusive as the Taliban, are eerily similar. Kristin Du Mez said “Trump’s four years in the White House made painfully clear just how deep these divisions ran.” About a quarter of Americans describe themselves as evangelical protestants; that’s tens of millions of people according to polling by Pew Research Center. 14% are white evangelicals, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, and that evangelical population grew among white Americans during the Trump administration.

This is another fissure opening in this age of social change rife with computerization, racial upheaval, women’s rights, and an increasingly oligarchical economy. The ‘white Christian’ tag is present in other denominations as well.

Americans must admit that national legislation, whether Federal, state or local, still limits women’s rights and underplays male accountability to be fair and nonjudgmental. The fact that years of rape cases documented in police records have gone unprocessed is just one example. The fact that sexual abuse to women is as blatant and ignored as to tolerate gross abuse to an entire team of female Olympic gymnasts is just one example. The fact that a woman does not have the right to make decisions about her own body with respect to abortion is just one example. The fact that the rate of pay for the same job across the United States even in modern industries pays women 82 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Perhaps Americans should take note of the Taliban and cast the mote from their own nation.

Ancient Mariner

Humanism

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Someone suggested mariner should expound on humanism, referenced in his last post about ABBA. He proposed that computer intelligence was damaging the humanistic elements of society.

Generally, humanism refers to a focus on human wellbeing and advocates for human freedom, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotion and development of every human, advocates the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings and has concern for humans in relation to the world not only politically but in the human relation to the planet as a whole. Wikipedia uses the word ‘agency’ which means capability to perform as intended.

Humanism has no theology; the core ethic is the responsibility of humans to do what is best for humans. Humanism often is compared to secularism because both philosophies espouse a human-based morality that includes self-imposed responsibility for the wellbeing of humans, including the reality within which humans must exist.

The difference between the two is that secularism focuses more on the separation of church and state while humanism has no argument with the existence of theological beliefs – as long as it improves the agency (ability to perform as intended) of its believers. Humanism depends on science and existential circumstances to define both reality and moral agency.

What is important to humanism is its concern for success in life for all people and extends that concern to all of reality such that humans and reality are in concert. A large part of that position is the inclusive nature required. Many of the ethical principles are similar to those in the New Testament, that is, respect everyone without prejudice, do no harm, bond with humanity using compassion and assuring one’s agency is focused on the wellbeing of humanity.

Caring for humans is a natural instinct for the species. The ability to read the emotional state of a person by the expression on that person’s face, without even realizing one is analyzing, is a simple example of how important human emotion is. Compassion is a particularly strong emotion in humans but it is damaged by being abused or by constricting normal behavior. Humanism is a political advocate for equality and freedom and it promotes the agency of society generally.

When an individual frequently withdraws from interaction with humans in order to focus on a smartphone, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When the information on that smartphone is unreliable or manipulative, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When too many trees are cut down and it affects global warming, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? When economic policy is unbalanced by classism, does that improve the wellbeing of humanity? Whatever the issue, humanists will ask: Does that improve the wellbeing of humanity?

Ancient Mariner

Sharia Law

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Mariner was reading his daily mail this morning when he read an article about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. The new leader of the government encouraged women to join the new government – as long as they followed Sharia Law. This statement is far beyond anything Donald would say. No woman in her right mind would voluntarily support Sharia Law.

Comparatively, Sharia Law is a guidebook for Muslim judges to use when hearing cases brought before them. The cases are similar to cases brought before lower courts in the United States.

While other legal codes regulate public behavior, Sharia regulates public behavior, private behavior, and even private beliefs. Compared to other legal codes, the Sharia Law also prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation and favors corporal and capital punishments over incarceration. Of all legal systems in the world today, the Sharia law is the most intrusive and restrictive, especially against women.

Thanks primarily to Wikipedia and the billionbible website, below is a list of specific mandates included in Sharia Law:

  • Theft is punishable by amputation of the hands.
  • Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by death.
  • Criticizing Muhammad or denying that he is a prophet is punishable by death.
  • Criticizing or denying Allah is punishable by death.
  • A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
  • A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
  • A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
  • A woman or girl who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
  • Testimonies of 4 male witnesses are required to prove rape of a female.
  • A woman or girl who alleges rape without producing 4 male witnesses is guilty of adultery.
  • A woman or girl found guilty of adultery is punishable by death.
  • A male convicted of rape can have his conviction dismissed by marrying his victim.
  • Muslim men have sexual rights to any woman/girl not wearing the Hijab.
  • A woman can have 1 husband, who can have up to 4 wives; Muhammad can have more.
  • A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
  • Girls’ clitoris should be cut.
  • A man can beat his wife for insubordination.
  • A man can unilaterally divorce his wife; a wife needs her husband’s consent to divorce.
  • A divorced wife loses custody of all children over 6 years of age or when they exceed it.
  • A woman’s testimony in court, allowed in property cases, carries ½ the weight of a man’s.
  • A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
  • A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
  • Meat to eat must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah.
  • Muslims should engage in Taqiyya (saying something that isn’t true but supports the Muslim position) and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam.

There is a moderate wing of Muslims who have incorporated a modern ethical code into their beliefs but still generally accept the principles underlying the Sharia.

In nations which have Islam as national law, at a minimum the Sharia reaches across all nations ending in –stan [seven and Iran which should be a –stan except for a shift in dominant language at the time] .

Yet another new situation in these changing times.

Ancient Mariner