tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post6438280492874177195..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: "May it Be Unto Your According To Your Faith"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-37972980508485401112017-12-24T15:07:40.475-06:002017-12-24T15:07:40.475-06:00I re-read the post and her added comments. She jus...I re-read the post and her added comments. She just replaced one fundamentalism with another, which makes the story even more conventional and less interesting.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-63925264491980328482017-12-24T13:56:09.619-06:002017-12-24T13:56:09.619-06:00I tried 'religion'...I like being a pagan....I tried 'religion'...I like being a pagan..be a good human and leave the place better than when you got here..yellowdoggrannyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14906624317290990109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-76471316342483633172017-12-23T22:02:40.620-06:002017-12-23T22:02:40.620-06:00Oh, and in the hearts and minds of those who love ...Oh, and in the hearts and minds of those who love me, and perhaps there is more to that than I can begin to imagine. June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-11157248351651175982017-12-23T21:44:34.799-06:002017-12-23T21:44:34.799-06:00I've lost my comment three times now. Somebody...I've lost my comment three times now. Somebody is trying to tell me something. Perhaps I should stick with the wisdom of the E&R:"May it be unto you according to your faith."<br /><br />Yeah, I really can't improve on that.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-80762270388056195122017-12-23T21:14:28.021-06:002017-12-23T21:14:28.021-06:00"I think about living my life(such as it is)...."I think about living my life(such as it is)." <br /><br />I do, too. I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on death throughout the day. It's more the odd, lingering thought from time to time. I'm older than you are, and, as the ravages of age increasingly take their toll, non-existence sometimes seems a not entirely bad thing. If there is more of the conscious me in a better time in the afterlife, then I'll be surprised...or not. Maybe it will seem like the most natural thing in the world if it happens. As of now, in no way can I imagine an afterlife that will be anything more than molecules from my ashes continuing to exist as part of the universe. June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-69246638342638599412017-12-23T20:17:59.360-06:002017-12-23T20:17:59.360-06:00No, I don't think you're morbid, either. B...No, I don't think you're morbid, either. But I accept death, and certainly don't think (or believe) I'll escape it. Is my death possible? To you, to anyone not me, it certainly is. To me? I'm not so sure I can imagine my own non-existence; not really. So I don't think about escaping death, I think about living my life(such as it is). For me, that's what Christianity is about. So it isn't about escaping death, but accepting it. Surely that is the way of wisdom. Having accepted it, how should I then live?Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-54734174429200759672017-12-23T17:56:14.844-06:002017-12-23T17:56:14.844-06:00"Christianity isn't about escaping death...."Christianity isn't about escaping death. It's about accepting it."<br /><br />Is it? I'll think more about it, but that doesn't make sense to me. When I was diagnosed with cancer 32 years ago, I looked death in the face and faced the reality that, if not soon, one day I will die. Cancer concentrates the mind, not necessarily wonderfully. Obviously, I didn't die then, but death is a fact of life, and I doubt accepting the reality of death has much to do with Christianity. I think about death, and I don't believe I'm morbid for doing so, but then again, maybe I am.<br /><br />June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-23030329689822635472017-12-23T05:35:43.124-06:002017-12-23T05:35:43.124-06:00That said, a fear of death is a lot easier to dism...That said, a fear of death is a lot easier to dismiss in a society with an average life expectancy of more than three score and ten, where most parents don't bury children before they are adults. I doubt even Ann Grant would not fear that kind of death.<br /><br />I found the thing that has made me fear death less was when a nephew I'd taken care of as a child died of a heart attack in his 30s and having a niece whose drug addiction and prostitution made me regularly fear she was going to die. <br /><br />Dying isn't easy but my experience of seeing people die led me to believe more strongly in an afterlife, but as Rabbi Heschel said in the last interview he gave, he believed in an afterlife but he lacked sufficient knowledge to talk about it, that he was supposed to focus on life on Earth. <br /><br />I think Ms. Grant and her husband believed in a god who was easy to stop believing in, probably the one who people started believing in after Descartes and co. demoted animals into machines made of meat. You start believing that - which led Descartes into nailing his wife's poor dog down and dissecting it conscious and alive - and eventually you start thinking of people in the same way. Any faith that could get kicked down by watching David Attenborough in a BBC series must have been the kind of faith that wasn't much to start with. Her belief that Jesus talked to her and was her BBF doesn't sound like it would have much of a chance of surviving childhood. <br /><br />I'm sorry, but she sounds kind of full of herself in a way I've found in a lot of "liberal Christians." It's a distinctly different kind of fullness of self than that commonly found among conservative Christians. Often it has to do with having college credentials. It's what turned me off to Unitarians, though not so much Universalists. The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-36718816905098780842017-12-22T21:20:06.417-06:002017-12-22T21:20:06.417-06:00Ah, you (and others who have expressed the same se...Ah, you (and others who have expressed the same sentiments) make it all worthwhile.<br /><br />Thank you. Thank you all.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-91927077218151460612017-12-22T20:49:31.598-06:002017-12-22T20:49:31.598-06:00As an Anglican priest nicely put it in a sermon I ...As an Anglican priest nicely put it in a sermon I heard, "My faith is not about hope in the end, my faith is about endless hope now." A dozen years on I still return to that as a pretty good summary of my faith in my life. I had a sever onset of an unexplained illness, I lost 12 hours of my life that I wasn't sleeping but don't remember. In the middle I had a short period of lucidity and I remember thinking, this is what is like to die. It was frightening, and also very confusing. What comes next doesn't much matter, it's about my faith in the hear and now. How to live together, and more. Thank you for all of your Advent postings, they have made this year particularly meaningful. rustypickuphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17861692872132066016noreply@blogger.com