Who owns my experience?

When you are a Christian your spiritual experiences come from God. When you don't believe in a god anymore who owns them? I get told by many that if I cease to be a Christian then all those experiences were a lie. How can that be? Like many things Christian fuzzy thinking obscures what has occurred and gives the credit for our personal life to an imaginary friend out there somewhere.

I first came across this when I becamne friends (at 18) with a Moslem. We spoke about our experiences of God and what God meant to us. It shocked me, being the true believer that his experiences were identical to mine. Reading William James The Varieties of Religious Experience helped convinced me that what I had thought were God given spiritual experinces were perfectly normal human experiences.

It seems Christianity comes in and tries to replace the human with the divine. What it actually does is rename everything as divine and negates everything that is human. So I guess my response about my spiritual experiences now is they have not changed, lost or forsaken. In fact my spiritual life is richer now for removing an obscuring layer that prevented me from seeing myself as I actually am.

As for being a sinner from birth. Fuck that, Augustine and his buddies were wrong. Adam and Eve is a story, a myth. Can't condemn the whole human race on the basis of a myth. Seems to me we live in a mixed up world without any evidence of anything other than continually striving to be better. Sounds a lot like an evolutionary process, what a surprise.

Next time someone tries to give the credit for your achievements to God, might be worth saying a little something like " Leave God out of it right, where she was when I did all this!"

A reply to Nicholas Rundle

Sea of faith

Like many Australians I grew up near the sea and it formed a vital part of my early years. Initially I was taught to love the sea by my father, an avid fisherman. We would get up at around 4.00am, well before the sun, and take our places on the beach or rocks, rods in hand to salute the dawn. We didn't catch many fish, but we certainly saw some spectacular sunrises.

As I grew older my relationship with the sea changed as I realised I didn't want to be looking at it from outside I wanted to be in the water. My love of surfing was born and my experience and love of the sea took its own shape. My peak experience was not riding 15 foot waves (which is way more frightening than I ever imagined) but of one winter's morning spending 15 minutes playing with a pod of dolphins. It was a cold crisp morning and only three of us were out when the dolphins came. We ignored them, which conversely seemed to tell them that we were safe. There is nothing like riding a wave with a dolphin riding right beside you, or having a dolphin play chicken with you (they are much bigger and faster than you think). This was one of those moment that has always stayed with me.

Sea of Faith has been a community of people who have experienced something of faith. That is all we need. Each of us immersed in the experiences that make up our lives but sharing in the common human experience. Communication does not always lead anywhere: the dolphins and I understood very little about one another but shared a common experience that morning.

A common ground we already have but those of us who are not realists in the realm of religion are not scientists examining the marine environment. We are surfers on the waves of human experience; like everyone else we seek to enrich and ennoble our lives through interaction with others.

I think I understand Nicholas Rundles point about critics and connoisseurs. The problem is that dichotomies seem to exclude too easily. As a non realist I have not stopped surfing, and I hope my interaction with the sea of faith is something I can share with those like my father who fish, like my wife who swims, my nephew who paddles on the edge. As the slogan goes, "The beach is there to share".

 


Tatiana one of our rabbits. 

Sermons

I have been reading the internet monk lately and i really liked his series on sermons.
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/whats-wrong-with-the-sermon-v-more-stories-please#more-318

It got me thinking about what I would say about sermons. A list of tips for the new preacher:

1)If you find the material boring so will your listeners.

2)Don't think that a sermon of longer than 20 minutes in riveting, it isn't.

3) If you tell a joke make sure it's funny.

4) Repetition is an overused rhetorical device.

5) Repetition is an overused rhetorical device.

6) Assume your audience can read, don't insult them by simply retelling a bible passage.

7) No one cares who begat who, so make your choice of a text relevant.

8) Not everyone left school in year 2 some even went to university.

9) Don't assume you know more than your audience or you may get a shock.

10) This is not a chance to argue for your position or ideas.

11) This is not a chance to insult, belittle, or simply talk down to people you don't get on with.

12) A sermon that takes 5 minutes to put together sounds like a sermon that takes 5 minutes to put together.

13) Do the research, nothing is more annoying to a listener as being told things you know are wrong.

14) God is not speaking through you, you are sharing your ideas, so don't act like a divine prophet.

15) Dress well, it is an insult to those listening to dress poorly.

16) Midnight Saturday is not a great time for sermon preparation.

17) Repetition is an overused rhetorical device.

18) Quit while your ahead, leave the listener wanting to hear more not bolting for the exit.

19) Don't be afraid to ask the audience to think for themselves, it might give them a nice surprise.

20) ???

Any suggestions.