Wednesday, August 15, 2012
What God Means To Me...
Just a couple of quick thoughts here...
Or maybe more than a few quick thoughts...as I get going...
I went to a church tonight....a seemingly unorthodox one that I have been looking at for a while...
It used to be a movie theatre...
And it just happened to be beside my favorite bar...
I walked inside and it was empty....
Or so it seemed...
I was partly in when a young, middle aged man...I'm guessing about 35...
Came out of an office....
To see what I was up to....
What I was up to was a place to teach...
Hegel's Hotel....
But I didn't tell him that...
He showed me the place...
A smaller forum that used to be a movie theatre...
And then a larger forum where the main services were/are held...
On Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights
(During the summer when people go away for the weekend)
I said I had a background in philosophy...
And was interested in the history of his particular denomination...
We got into some discussion about the religious history...
Of his particular denomination....
A name I can't remember because it was three large words...
That I was not familiar with...
Sounded like it was a deviation from the Catholic Church...
Then the Protestant (United) Church (that was my denomination as a child growing up)...
Maybe a couple more deviations off of that...
Kinda like deviations from Freudian Psychoanalysis...
He called it a conservative church, casual and contemporary...
I said that sounded more like a 'liberal' church -- flexible....
Which sounded good to me...
We found out we had different definitions of 'conservative' and 'liberal'...
Relative to religion...
We got into a rhetorical argument around the parable of Abraham...
And both agreed that we didn't want to get into a righteous argument...
I asked him who the priest or minister of the Church was...
And he said he was....He was the Pastor....
We both agreed to disagree on our Biblical differences of opinion...
The only one I get passionate about -- like Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling) --
Is the God, Abraham, and Issac Parable....
I get very passionate on that one...
I have no place for a betraying father...
I have to look partly into my own conscience on that one...
And the ambivalent love-hate relationship I had with my father...
Growing up...
Nor, do I have any place for....
An arguably 'anal-sadistic' God...
Who values 'submission to authority'...
Over independent, critical thought...
And a father's supposed love for his son...
We left that argument...
He introduced himself as Fred...
And I may take in one of his Wednesday night...
Or Sunday morning sessions...
I will simply punctuate this brief little essay...
By saying...
That for me...
Religion should be...first and foremost...
About caring for people....
Engaging people....
Helping them to find...
A more involved...
And meaningful, spiritual place in the world...
All the arguments in the world...
About how to interpret the Bible...
The Scripture...
Or any other sacred manuscript...
From any other religious denomination...
Is worth nothing....
If we don't care about...
And engage with people...
This fits with my 'Attachment-Detachment Theory'...
The first and foremost goal of any psychotherapy...
And/or any religion...
Should be to 're-attach' people...
Who have become 'detached'...
Who have lost their place in the world...
Their relationships in the world...
Their meaning in the world...
And that comes, first and foremost...
From caring about people...
And re-engaging people...
Into productive, meaningful relationships...
In a world of narcissistic, unethical...
Capitalism Gone Mad...
We need something...
And someone(s) to help restore their trust...
And faith in people...
For me,
Trust and faith in God...
Is a secondary, arguable, issue...
Personally, I don't believe in...
Submission to anyone...
Submission is counter-productive to...
Self-empowerment....
And critical, independent thinking...
Submission to authority invites...
Self-exploitation by the dominant authority figure...
I now prefer to call myself a...
Dialectic-Humanistic-Existential-Pantheist...
Like Spinoza...my main mentor here...
In conjunction to Schelling and Hegel...
I believe that there is a piece of God...
In everything and everyone...
Which of course includes...
The person...
Standing...
Or sitting...
Right beside you...or me...
Seek and ye shall find...
A piece of God in yourself...
And in the person...
Right beside you...
Of particular importance...
Is the person who has lost his or her...
Particular way...
Not in the usual religious sense...
Of losing faith in God...
As in losing faith in any God above us...
For better or worse, a lot of people have done that...
That's why we have heretics, atheists, agnostics, pantheists, deists...
And the list keeps going
In the realm of 'meta-physics'....
Everything is speculative...
And beyond any normal sense of the word 'provable'...
No, when I am talking about 'lost faith'...
I am talking about having lost faith...
In one's self...
And in one's relationships...
And in one's life....
And in one's meaning and passion...
For life....
Here, from my perspective...
We all need to re-connect...
At least to the extent that...
We have lost this connection...
With our Spiritual-Congruent Self...
Our Phenomenology of Spirit...
The God in each of us...
The God between us...
I and Thou...
Here and now...
-- dgb, Aug. 14, 15, 2012
...................................................................................................
From Wikipedia...
Pantheism....
Pantheism is a word derived from the Greek (pan) meaning "all" and the Greek (theos) meaning "God". It is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing immanent God,[1] or that the Universe (or Nature) and God (or divinity) are identical.[2] Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, or anthropomorphic god. As such, pantheism denotes the idea that every single thing is a part of one Being ("God") and that all forms of reality are either modes of that Being or identical with it.[3] The central ideas found in almost all pantheistic beliefs are the view of the Cosmos as an all-encompassing unity, reverence for the Cosmos, and recognition of the sacredness of the Universe.
.........................................................................................................................
Sunday, April 22, 2012
On Kierkegaard, Faith, and Religon -- I'm Not On Board
Prof Rev Fr. Philip Ogbonna • Presumably a Kierkaadian quote to follow...
It's only the aesthetic mind that will doubt it but are the majority not aesthetic in their outlook? It is not the paradox that constitutes the downfall but understanding by not understanding itself.
It's only the aesthetic mind that will doubt it but are the majority not aesthetic in their outlook? It is not the paradox that constitutes the downfall but understanding by not understanding itself.
-
David Bain • Not one of my favorite Kierkegaard quotes...I stay away from the religous side of Kierkegaard...My spirituality is more of a pantheistic-deistic spirituality and has been influenced more by the likes of Heraclitus, Plato, Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Einstien....I have a much different take on 'Fear and Trembling' and the Abraham-Isaac parable. I do not hold any faith in a God who would tell me to murder my own son...Instead, i would tell God that 'He is dead' -- because it is only a sadistic, murdering God who would tell me to kill my own son. I would kill God instead -- at least this type of God. Kierkegaard betrayed his fiancee at the alter for this type of God? In this regard, yes indeed, Kierkegaard was left with an 'either/or' choice -- marriage or the worship of God -- and it is obvious to me that Kierkegaard made the wrong choice. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been such a miserable, sarcastic, arrogant, condescending person his whole life. Kierkegaard never found God or Salvation. He spent much of his life simply trying to justifiy and rationalize his own stupid choices....
David - the genetic fallacy has been rehashed ad nauseum in SK scholarship; surely the meaning of anyone's life could be reduced by this sort of deterministic logic. But is that the best or most charitable way to read the situation? The same for your read of the Abraham-Isaac story and SK's interpretation of it: you could make a case out of it, as many already have, but because your case lacks charity, it is neither the most cogent nor the most compelling case. If your own religious views allow you to trash somebody whom you've never met and likely not tried very hard to understand, how can you consider yourself any different than your own reading of SK? More to the point, maybe your reading of SK says more about the reader than the subject? Perhaps you should read Works of Love - or at least the Golden Rule.
David Bain • I don't know what you mean, Kerby, by 'the genetic fallacy', ...All of my arguments are my own arguments -- even if they have been argued before me by someone who I haven't read....
To be perfectly clear on the matter above, I am certainly not trashing the altruistic side of religion and its sincere attempts to counter the 'narcissistic callousness and apathy' that makes up much of our society today....But you don't have to be religious to be altruistic and humanistic, and both religion and God can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people -- some good, some bad, some healthy, some pathological, some severely pathological...In the end, both God and religion are no better or no worse than what we project onto these terms and concepts ourselves....I believe that God lives in all of us and that we can 'become more Godly' to the extent that we all live more balanced, meaningful, passionate, assertive and socially sensitive lives....
I will stick with Kierkegaard's more existentially enlightening quotes (at least from my own perspective) like....
'Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.' -- Soren Kierkegaard
I will stick with Kierkegaard's more existentially enlightening quotes (at least from my own perspective) like....
'Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.' -- Soren Kierkegaard
And again, I believe that we all have to look inside to find God. Godliness is the ideal 'dialectic-humanistic-existential balancing act of all our internal and external interests, needs, impulses, desires, drives, paradoxes, contradictions, impasses, conflicts...actualizing our own potential to our fullest capability without trashing other people in the process.' -- dgb.
Monday, April 25, 2011
If There is One Thing Good To Be Said About Global Capitalism...
If there is one thing good to say about Free Trade and Global Capitalism...it is perhaps this:
We in North America -- or at least the middle and lower classes -- are suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world (or what used to be -- China, Mexico, India, The Philippines) --- who are, generally speaking much more impoverished than us, or at least were before Free Trade and Global Capitalism affected them and us -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...Indeed, China and India are probably two of the most economically solid and self-sufficient countries in the world right now, China, in effect, now owns much of North America so the negative here is that Free Trade and Global Capitalism was, and still is, a 'win-lose' conflict solution -- other countries and people in these countries gaining at our expense....One can say that 'Ultra-Powerful-North American-Unions' has lead to the death or self-destruction of the North American Manufacturing Industry and/or that Corporate Leaders at the time that Reagan and Mulroney were in power, got in their respective ears to influence their change in political policy -- out with the tariffs and National Protectionism like Japan has -- and in with Free Trade and Global Capitalism which sent North American Manufacturing Industries to all corners of the world....
Whoever, and wherever the responsibility lies, both historically and still today -- Big Unions, Big Corporations, and/or Big Government being affected more by Big Corporations than by Big Unions obviously -- the result of Free Trade and Global Capitalism has been the destruction of most of the major manufacturing jobs in North America. Some of them -- like the car manufacturing jobs -- are coming back, but many never will....Consequently, so many North Americans -- both Americans and Canadians -- losing their jobs in shut down manufacturing plants (I can still see some of these shuts down automobile parts plants where I live)...and with these lost manufacturing jobs, so too have many Unions lost power, and their constituencies, leaving individual workers to fight among themselves for left-over jobs, paying less money, with less benefits, sometimes not even overtime or holiday pay for part-timers and contract workers, and no collective bargaining power to take on much more powerful corporations with a large, unemployed work force to continue to pick from...
In effect, first and second world countries are slithering down the economic totem pole while third world countries are climbing up it...
Great for the previously impoverished countries like China and India that are now more economically more stable than America and Canada -- indeed, we have even become dependent on their financial loans....
However, Free Trade and Global Capitalism sure has not helped North America except for Global Corporate Leaders...
Japan, to my knowledge, has stayed true to their principle of National Protectionism...
And they haven't sank economically like North America and Europe did...
At least that is how I see the whole Free Trade and Global Capitalism business...since Reagan and Mulroney signed the agreement....
I'm not talking from an expert's eyes...
But from a citizen's eyes, a lay person's eyes...
And I don't think I am very wrong....
-- dgb, April 25th, 2011, updated Dec. 18, 2012
-- David Gordon Bain
We in North America -- or at least the middle and lower classes -- are suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world (or what used to be -- China, Mexico, India, The Philippines) --- who are, generally speaking much more impoverished than us, or at least were before Free Trade and Global Capitalism affected them and us -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...Indeed, China and India are probably two of the most economically solid and self-sufficient countries in the world right now, China, in effect, now owns much of North America so the negative here is that Free Trade and Global Capitalism was, and still is, a 'win-lose' conflict solution -- other countries and people in these countries gaining at our expense....One can say that 'Ultra-Powerful-North American-Unions' has lead to the death or self-destruction of the North American Manufacturing Industry and/or that Corporate Leaders at the time that Reagan and Mulroney were in power, got in their respective ears to influence their change in political policy -- out with the tariffs and National Protectionism like Japan has -- and in with Free Trade and Global Capitalism which sent North American Manufacturing Industries to all corners of the world....
Whoever, and wherever the responsibility lies, both historically and still today -- Big Unions, Big Corporations, and/or Big Government being affected more by Big Corporations than by Big Unions obviously -- the result of Free Trade and Global Capitalism has been the destruction of most of the major manufacturing jobs in North America. Some of them -- like the car manufacturing jobs -- are coming back, but many never will....Consequently, so many North Americans -- both Americans and Canadians -- losing their jobs in shut down manufacturing plants (I can still see some of these shuts down automobile parts plants where I live)...and with these lost manufacturing jobs, so too have many Unions lost power, and their constituencies, leaving individual workers to fight among themselves for left-over jobs, paying less money, with less benefits, sometimes not even overtime or holiday pay for part-timers and contract workers, and no collective bargaining power to take on much more powerful corporations with a large, unemployed work force to continue to pick from...
In effect, first and second world countries are slithering down the economic totem pole while third world countries are climbing up it...
Great for the previously impoverished countries like China and India that are now more economically more stable than America and Canada -- indeed, we have even become dependent on their financial loans....
However, Free Trade and Global Capitalism sure has not helped North America except for Global Corporate Leaders...
Japan, to my knowledge, has stayed true to their principle of National Protectionism...
And they haven't sank economically like North America and Europe did...
At least that is how I see the whole Free Trade and Global Capitalism business...since Reagan and Mulroney signed the agreement....
I'm not talking from an expert's eyes...
But from a citizen's eyes, a lay person's eyes...
And I don't think I am very wrong....
-- dgb, April 25th, 2011, updated Dec. 18, 2012
-- David Gordon Bain
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Who Were Some of The Greatest 'Healers' -- in The Spirit of Jesus Christ -- In The 19th and 20th Centuries?
I would like to take this essay to honour some of the greatest female healers in the history of civilization...Included in my list today are: Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell...and Princess Diana...
................................................
I think Mother Teresa had a deeper insight -- and a more intense empathy -- into the 'reality', not the 'fantasy', of 'human neurosis' than Freud did...And with all due respect to Freud, I think she was by far the greater healer...
Not surprisingly in my opinion, Mother Teresa's insight into human suffering and 'neurosis' -- a name that she probably would never even use -- came mainly from a similar place -- traumacy theory -- where Freud had started his investigations into psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic healing in the early 1890s, not after he abandoned this position/perspective/theory after 1896. Mother Teresa, to my knowledge, was never interested in 'human fantasy theory' -- perhaps more of a product of the middle and upper class where people have more time, money, and energy to fantasize...-- no, she was too busy trying to encourage, support, and give people hope and love in the deepest depths of their suffering...
You saw some of this in Freud's work up to 1896 -- his 'empathy' for traumatized and/or victimized 'hysterical' women...But after 1896, something changed -- I think it was a combination of the Emma Ekstein nasal surgery fiasco and near tragedy, as well as the scientific meeting of April, 1896, where Freud learned directly and indirectly in no uncertain terms that 'patriarchal power ruled', that he was 'overpowered and outmatched', and if 'you can't beat them, you join them'.
Women like Mother Teresa -- and Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell, even Princess Diana -- were too busy 'working the trenches' trying to help and heal people in their highest states of misery, to think about 'political correctness'...and/or their own 'self-preservation'..
Mother Teresa burned a type, an intensity, a depth and a breadth of love that none of us are likely to come close to duplicating... If there is a connection here to the 'altruistic idealism' of Christianity -- or any other religion -- then I have the deepest of respect for any man or woman who can burn the fire and spiritual-religious idealism of their particular religion to the applied depth and breadth of these women...
.................................................................
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Mother Teresa
(If you can't help a hundred people, then help just one. -- dgb)
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
Mother Teresa
......................................................
Florence Nightingale Quotes
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florence_nightingale.html
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.
Florence Nightingale
I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.
Florence Nightingale
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale
It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
Florence Nightingale
So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.
Florence Nightingale
The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
Florence Nightingale
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.
Florence Nightingale
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.
Florence Nightingale
...........................................................
Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC (pronounced /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/, historically [ˈflɒɾəns]; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. A Christian universalist, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.
...................................................
I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
Edith Cavell
....................................................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell
Edith Louisa Cavell ( /ˈkævəl/; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse and humanitarian. She is celebrated for saving the lives of casualties from all sides without distinction and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I, for which she was arrested. She was court-martialled and found guilty of treason. She was sentenced to death and shot by firing squad. She received worldwide sympathetic press coverage.
She is well-known for her statement that "patriotism is not enough." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved".[1] Cavell was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.
........................................
Mother Teresa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
Mother Teresa in Calcutta
Religion Catholic
Order Missionaries of Charity
Personal
Nationality Albanian, Indian
Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
August 26, 1910(1910-08-26)
Üsküb, Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire (today's Skopje)
Died September 5, 1997(1997-09-05) (aged 87)
Calcutta, India
Signature of Mother Teresa
Senior posting
Title Superior General
Period in office 1950–1997
Successor Nirmala Joshi
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu[1] (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was a Catholic nun of Albanian[2][3] ethnicity and Indian citizenship,[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.[5][6]
By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.
....................................................
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/princess_diana.html
Quotes from Princess Diana...
Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.
Princess Diana
Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Princess Diana
Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
Princess Diana
Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.
Princess Diana
Family is the most important thing in the world.
Princess Diana
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it.
Princess Diana
Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.
Princess Diana
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
Princess Diana
I don't go by the rule book... I lead from the heart, not the head.
Princess Diana
I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure.
Princess Diana
I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.
Princess Diana
I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.
Princess Diana
I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.
Princess Diana
I think like any marriage, especially when you've had divorced parents like myself; you want to try even harder to make it work.
Princess Diana
I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.
Princess Diana
I want my boys to have an understanding of people's emotions, their insecurities, people's distress, and their hopes and dreams.
Princess Diana
I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.
Princess Diana
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Princess Diana
I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings and in their public duties.
Princess Diana
....................................................
-- dgb, Easter Sunday, April 24th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
................................................
I think Mother Teresa had a deeper insight -- and a more intense empathy -- into the 'reality', not the 'fantasy', of 'human neurosis' than Freud did...And with all due respect to Freud, I think she was by far the greater healer...
Not surprisingly in my opinion, Mother Teresa's insight into human suffering and 'neurosis' -- a name that she probably would never even use -- came mainly from a similar place -- traumacy theory -- where Freud had started his investigations into psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic healing in the early 1890s, not after he abandoned this position/perspective/theory after 1896. Mother Teresa, to my knowledge, was never interested in 'human fantasy theory' -- perhaps more of a product of the middle and upper class where people have more time, money, and energy to fantasize...-- no, she was too busy trying to encourage, support, and give people hope and love in the deepest depths of their suffering...
You saw some of this in Freud's work up to 1896 -- his 'empathy' for traumatized and/or victimized 'hysterical' women...But after 1896, something changed -- I think it was a combination of the Emma Ekstein nasal surgery fiasco and near tragedy, as well as the scientific meeting of April, 1896, where Freud learned directly and indirectly in no uncertain terms that 'patriarchal power ruled', that he was 'overpowered and outmatched', and if 'you can't beat them, you join them'.
Women like Mother Teresa -- and Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell, even Princess Diana -- were too busy 'working the trenches' trying to help and heal people in their highest states of misery, to think about 'political correctness'...and/or their own 'self-preservation'..
Mother Teresa burned a type, an intensity, a depth and a breadth of love that none of us are likely to come close to duplicating... If there is a connection here to the 'altruistic idealism' of Christianity -- or any other religion -- then I have the deepest of respect for any man or woman who can burn the fire and spiritual-religious idealism of their particular religion to the applied depth and breadth of these women...
.................................................................
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Mother Teresa
(If you can't help a hundred people, then help just one. -- dgb)
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
Mother Teresa
......................................................
Florence Nightingale Quotes
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florence_nightingale.html
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.
Florence Nightingale
I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.
Florence Nightingale
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale
It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
Florence Nightingale
So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.
Florence Nightingale
The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
Florence Nightingale
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.
Florence Nightingale
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.
Florence Nightingale
...........................................................
Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC (pronounced /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/, historically [ˈflɒɾəns]; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. A Christian universalist, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.
...................................................
I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
Edith Cavell
....................................................
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell
Edith Louisa Cavell ( /ˈkævəl/; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse and humanitarian. She is celebrated for saving the lives of casualties from all sides without distinction and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I, for which she was arrested. She was court-martialled and found guilty of treason. She was sentenced to death and shot by firing squad. She received worldwide sympathetic press coverage.
She is well-known for her statement that "patriotism is not enough." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved".[1] Cavell was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.
........................................
Mother Teresa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
Mother Teresa in Calcutta
Religion Catholic
Order Missionaries of Charity
Personal
Nationality Albanian, Indian
Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
August 26, 1910(1910-08-26)
Üsküb, Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire (today's Skopje)
Died September 5, 1997(1997-09-05) (aged 87)
Calcutta, India
Signature of Mother Teresa
Senior posting
Title Superior General
Period in office 1950–1997
Successor Nirmala Joshi
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu[1] (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was a Catholic nun of Albanian[2][3] ethnicity and Indian citizenship,[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.[5][6]
By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.
....................................................
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/princess_diana.html
Quotes from Princess Diana...
Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.
Princess Diana
Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Princess Diana
Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
Princess Diana
Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.
Princess Diana
Family is the most important thing in the world.
Princess Diana
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it.
Princess Diana
Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.
Princess Diana
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
Princess Diana
I don't go by the rule book... I lead from the heart, not the head.
Princess Diana
I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure.
Princess Diana
I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.
Princess Diana
I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.
Princess Diana
I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.
Princess Diana
I think like any marriage, especially when you've had divorced parents like myself; you want to try even harder to make it work.
Princess Diana
I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.
Princess Diana
I want my boys to have an understanding of people's emotions, their insecurities, people's distress, and their hopes and dreams.
Princess Diana
I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.
Princess Diana
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Princess Diana
I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings and in their public duties.
Princess Diana
....................................................
-- dgb, Easter Sunday, April 24th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain
The Greatest Cure in The World for 'Capitalism'...
Dialectic-(Democratic)-Homeostatic Balance (DHB) will always be disturbed, disrupted, bent out of shape and balance, by individual and group narcissistic bias, manipulation, money and power.
Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.
In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.
Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?
Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.
But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.
The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:
1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?
2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?
Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...
Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..
The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...
Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...
Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...
Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...
Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...
I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...
We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...
I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...
.............................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html
........................................................
The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...
Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...
And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...
Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...
I fathom a guess...
That that would be the greatest cure in the world...
For 'Capitalism'...
Or for any other ideology in the world...
For that matter...
In Hegel's Hotel...
'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...
Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'
In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...
Idealistic? Of course...
Realistic?
As Mother Teresa would say,
........................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
.............................
-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.
-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...
-- Can happen...
Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.
In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.
Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?
Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.
But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.
The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:
1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?
2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?
Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...
Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..
The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...
Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...
Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...
Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...
Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...
I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...
We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...
I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...
.............................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html
........................................................
The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...
Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...
And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...
Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...
I fathom a guess...
That that would be the greatest cure in the world...
For 'Capitalism'...
Or for any other ideology in the world...
For that matter...
In Hegel's Hotel...
'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...
Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'
In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...
Idealistic? Of course...
Realistic?
As Mother Teresa would say,
........................................
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
.............................
-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.
-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...
-- Can happen...
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Ten Different Commandments
Someone has written these beautiful words. One must read and try to understand the deep meanings in them. They are like the Ten Commandments to follow in life all the time.
1] Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble; it is a "steering wheel" that directs us in the right path throughout life.
2] Do you know why a car's windshield is so large & the rear view mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, look ahead and move on.
3] Friendship is like a book. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
4] All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy it; they will not last forever. If going wrong, don?t worry; they can't last long either.
5] Old friends are like Gold! New friends are Diamonds! If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold! Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a base of Gold!
6] Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!"
7] When God solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.
8] A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing you eyesight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision."
9] When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
10] WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES; it takes away todays PEACE.
1] Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble; it is a "steering wheel" that directs us in the right path throughout life.
2] Do you know why a car's windshield is so large & the rear view mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, look ahead and move on.
3] Friendship is like a book. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
4] All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy it; they will not last forever. If going wrong, don?t worry; they can't last long either.
5] Old friends are like Gold! New friends are Diamonds! If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold! Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a base of Gold!
6] Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!"
7] When God solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.
8] A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing you eyesight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision."
9] When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
10] WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES; it takes away todays PEACE.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
On The Good and Bad Side of Religion
You don't need the bible to learn morality or ethics. Having said that, my mom remains a very religious person, and she is one of the kindest, most community-oriented persons I have ever known. I still wouldn't want to get into a religious argument with her -- she believes what she believes -- but she is not a religious hypocrite. She lives her Protestant religion -- and reaches out to practically everyone to make them feel welcome and to make them feel better. The ultimate community person. The closest person I have met to Mother Teresa.
My dad has the same religious spirit as my mother but he needs more personal, individual space than my mom. He was -- and still is a visionary, idealistic person, expressed politically, economically, and business-wise through his political, economic, and business ideals as well as romantically through his much more recent 21st Century Romantic Poetry.
Me, I need my boundaries, need my freedom, need my individual space...I can be sociable enough with people I like and feel comfortable with but, at the same time, can be practically non-existant towards people who I basically don't want to talk with. I have my dad's visionary idealism expressed in my own way through my philosophy-psychology, I have some of my mother's caring, loyalty, and community spirit, but I am much more introverted, self-oriented, and narcissistic than my mother. I play the 'alienated, underground, stranger' role much easier than the 'community or political activist' role.
Religion has its good side. Caring about other people. Helping other people in a world where there is not really enough of this around anymore as people basically isolate themselves behind closed doors, or worse, in desolate mountain caves, planning who they can blow up next. (Or is that because of religion gone bad because of the nature of the perceiver and interpreter?)
To be sure, you don't need religion to care about people...but still...will there ever be another Mother Teresa? One without a driving internal religion to motivate him or her to do the type of work that Mother Teresa did, even if not to that extreme? There are not many people who can live this type of lifestyle -- with seemingly almost unlimited 'giving'. Still, I have the highest regard and respect for those who can. They are our unsung heroes. I work alone on my computer doing my thing. I hope that my work is good for people, has meaning for people. But there is nothing to beat the type of work these community workers do in the 'trenches of humanity'.
But the bad side of religion can be horrific. Righteous intolerance, refusing to see another point of view...Torturing, killing, and/or alienating non-believers or alternative believers...authoritarianism, restrictive lifestyles that are just way too restrictive...
-- dgb, April 2nd, 2009.
My dad has the same religious spirit as my mother but he needs more personal, individual space than my mom. He was -- and still is a visionary, idealistic person, expressed politically, economically, and business-wise through his political, economic, and business ideals as well as romantically through his much more recent 21st Century Romantic Poetry.
Me, I need my boundaries, need my freedom, need my individual space...I can be sociable enough with people I like and feel comfortable with but, at the same time, can be practically non-existant towards people who I basically don't want to talk with. I have my dad's visionary idealism expressed in my own way through my philosophy-psychology, I have some of my mother's caring, loyalty, and community spirit, but I am much more introverted, self-oriented, and narcissistic than my mother. I play the 'alienated, underground, stranger' role much easier than the 'community or political activist' role.
Religion has its good side. Caring about other people. Helping other people in a world where there is not really enough of this around anymore as people basically isolate themselves behind closed doors, or worse, in desolate mountain caves, planning who they can blow up next. (Or is that because of religion gone bad because of the nature of the perceiver and interpreter?)
To be sure, you don't need religion to care about people...but still...will there ever be another Mother Teresa? One without a driving internal religion to motivate him or her to do the type of work that Mother Teresa did, even if not to that extreme? There are not many people who can live this type of lifestyle -- with seemingly almost unlimited 'giving'. Still, I have the highest regard and respect for those who can. They are our unsung heroes. I work alone on my computer doing my thing. I hope that my work is good for people, has meaning for people. But there is nothing to beat the type of work these community workers do in the 'trenches of humanity'.
But the bad side of religion can be horrific. Righteous intolerance, refusing to see another point of view...Torturing, killing, and/or alienating non-believers or alternative believers...authoritarianism, restrictive lifestyles that are just way too restrictive...
-- dgb, April 2nd, 2009.
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of what I do not like about authoritarian religion -- and Kierkegaard's
idea of 'faith'. If i were to go back and redo my response i might modify
one line.
My mom is very religous -- Protestant -- as is my dad. Both are great
family and community people. They would probably not like my idea of God,
spirituality, and religion which borrows, as I said, from the likes of
Heraclitus, Plato, Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel and Einstein.
Regardless of how diplomatically or undiplomatically i were to write about
what i didn't like about Kierkeggard (his sarcastic arrogance, his
bitterness, and his take on the Abraham-Isaac parable -- it still comes
down to the same thing.
'Blind faith' without critical insight into what or who you are submitting
your faith and judgment to is a very dangerous, naive proposition,
especially in a very narcissistic world where there are some very ethically
bad people who would love to take advantage of this edge of power that they
would love to incorporate over you. Let's calling it taking advantage of
the 'herd mentality' (eg. Nazi Germany, and authoritarian religion).
So basically, the long and the short of what I wrote remains the same. My
point remains the same. And I don't even know who this 'SK' is that you
keep referring to.
Thanks for your feedback....appreciated....even if our points of view, our
paradigm, may differ.
David
Bain