I want to make a shrine to the universe.

[Alkan]

The universe isn't heralded enough. I think we should respect the universe religiously. I don't care if you agree with me or not, it truly is a matter of personal taste. With that said, I would like to make my own shrine in some way, perhaps. They say that meditation is healthy, and I personally think that spiritual feelings are at least something that we evolved to feel to cope with certain situations.

I feel touched by the universe, and I can't see enough of it at a time. I don't mind ritualistically humbling myself in the name of the indifferent and grand universe at all. It is the ultimate thing.

I don't mind if you think I'm perhaps a bit goofy for this, but that is what I would like for myself. And damnit, I wish arts had a greater place in the world today. This world could be such a great place... If only...

[Waldo]

Amen, and not goofy at all!

[rickymooston]

Many Taoists consider the I-Ching to be  a model of the universe.





Shrines to the universe.

[D M]

Hi,

This reminds me of something I’ve quoted before:

48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense.

– Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 2009
I certainly won’t laugh at you though, and you have my respect as a human being.

Have you ever heard of Ludwig Feuerbach? He was an atheist German philosopher in the 19th century who wanted to create an atheistic religion that possessed no supernatural ideas, but which worshipped humanity as a collective whole and honoured human attributes. I think he even had the idea of building temples to humanity where people would go to worship. His ideas influenced the first Soviet commissar of the Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, who made similar claims and stressed that atheism on its own was not sufficient as a replacement of religion, but that they needed ritual and spirituality in their lives or else their lives would become vacuous. Lenin rejected Lunacharsky’s ideas, but evenso many of his ideas found their way into Soviet society when the Communist party decided to invent special ceremonies and rituals meant to mimic corresponding religious rites (eg. marriages, funerals, etc.), but without any acknowledgment of the supernatural.
Thank you for sharing.
God Bless,

[Waldo]

Seems like we gotta worship somebody, or something.  Even atheists?

[JustMyron]

Worship? No. Prioritize? Yes.

Everyone has to decide what's important in their lives, and something will almost always end up being the most important thing. But that doesn't mean you have to worship that thing. For example, it could be that helping others is the priority for some people. Does that mean they worship other people?

[Alkan]

Seems like we gotta worship somebody, or something.  Even atheists?

At least feel in the presence of something greater than ourselves. Even atheists. Some of us may think differently, but most of us have similar desires.

lol: "We aren't so different, you and I..."

[rickymooston]

Note: Alkan isn't quite an atheist. He is more of a deist of sorts if a label exist.

Seems like we gotta worship somebody, or something.  Even atheists?

At least feel in the presence of something greater than ourselves.

The Tao or the processes that govern the universe. (At least that's how I see it. Others might explain it better/differently.)


Everything you need is in a symbol older than Christ.

[Alkan]

Note: Alkan isn't quite an atheist. He is more of a deist of sorts if a label exist.

Seems like we gotta worship somebody, or something.  Even atheists?

At least feel in the presence of something greater than ourselves.

The Tao or the processes that govern the universe. (At least that's how I see it. Others might explain it better/differently.)


Everything you need is in a symbol older than Christ.

I am an atheist. I don't believe in God or a higher power. I think there could be one, but I am not certain or pushing it as plausible because I don't know enough. I think you might have gotten confused because I believe that spirituality is a very important part of life, regardless of some sort of metaphysical presence. The feeling is something that chimpanzees exhibit. It's a very human thing. I am really best described as a humanist...

[catwixen]

Is to be awe inspired the same as worship? I don't think so.
If the Universe inspires "awe" in people...I think we need not give that any divine relevence. Awe is a very normal human emotion...and a wonderful one at that!
Nice thread Alkan....makes me want to try paint a Nebula.

In fact here is one my brother painted...well two if you notice "horsehead" in the background. Being a typical male he tried to hide a womans body in the pic...lol

But yeah I find this sort of expression to be the natural way some people express their Awe of the Universe. I see it so differently from worship. 

[Alkan]

Well, it's not worship as much as just feeling kind of small, and large at the same time and humbled because of that fact.

[catwixen]

^ Yep I totally get that...
Like we are so small compared to the Universe...yet so special to have awareness that came from chaotic events? Or events that could have gone an infinity of different ways with different outcomes. That kind of feeling?

[sky]

I am more humbled by the universe and nature and sun and moon and water than I am by anything. I think there is great healing to be found in the love of nature. It's so big yet I never feel alone.

[jill]

Cool painting Cat.  And yes - I see the woman's figure!  :)

Like Sky - I am humbled by all that surrounds me.  I am in awe of how small I really am.

But I worship nothing, and no one.

[D M]

Hi,

I started looking around online for Lunacharsky's essay on atheism, but I couldn't find it although I found this quote cited in another source:

You must love and deify matter above everything else, [love and deify] the corporal nature or the life of your body as the primary cause of things, as existence without a beginning or end, which has been and forever will be.

 
I also found this for Feuerbach:

Our relation to religion is therefore not a merely negative, but a critical one; we only separate the true from the false; – though we grant that the truth thus separated from falsehood is a new truth, essentially different from the old. Religion is the first form of self-consciousness. Religions are sacred because they are the traditions of the primitive self-consciousness. But that which in religion holds the first place – namely, God – is, as we have shown, in itself and according to truth, the second, for it is only the nature of man regarded objectively; and that which to religion is the second – namely, man – must therefore be constituted and declared the first. Love to man must be no derivative love; it must be original. If human nature is the highest nature to man, then practically also the highest and first law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est: – this is the great practical principle: – this is the axis on which revolves the history of the world. The relations of child and parent, of husband and wife, of brother and friend – in general, of man to man – in short, all the moral relations are per se religious. Life as a whole is, in its essential, substantial relations, throughout of a divine nature. Its religious consecration is not first conferred by the blessing of the priest. But the pretension of religion is that it can hallow an object by its essentially external co-operation; it thereby assumes to be itself the only holy power; besides itself it knows only earthly, ungodly relations; hence it comes forward in order to consecrate them and make them holy

–Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, 1841 (found here for anyone’s interest: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/index.htm)

It sort of reminds me of the christian doctrine of our the human body being the temple of the Holy Spirit:
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit with you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

It’s an interesting argument that occurred between Lenin and Lunacharsky, when Lenin hated these ideas because they resembled religious ideas, even though Lunacharsky was not advocating any supernatural belief. I think perhaps the great crux of the argument between those atheists was that people like Lunacharsky and Feuerbach thought that religion served a vital purpose for human life, and therefore they needed to bring in something to replace it so that people could still ‘divinize’ their lives and give spirituality to them, whereas people like Lenin thought that religion was of no value and perhaps didn't think it required such substitution.
There’s an atheist who was on a panel with Dawkins once, whose name I don’t recall, who once asked Dawkins if he was a naturalist. Dawkins said yes. And this man then asked him, ‘Well, you know that 90 % of the world’s population follows religion, so how can you think that religion is unnatural?’
God Bless,

[Alkan]

^ Yep I totally get that...
Like we are so small compared to the Universe...yet so special to have awareness that came from chaotic events? Or events that could have gone an infinity of different ways with different outcomes. That kind of feeling?

The largness comes from simply being a part of the universe.

[rickymooston]

I am an atheist. I don't believe in God or a higher power.

The Tao or the yin yang are not higher powers. They are subject to the laws of nature. A good translation seems to be a process or a path.

That said, some Taoists believe in Gods but I certainly don't.

I think you might have gotten confused because I believe that spirituality is a very important part of life, regardless of some sort of metaphysical presence.

The Tao is independent of whether its metaphysical or not. Things are the way they are and you can observe them. If you are smart, you take those observations in account and they determine your actions, otherwise, you exert more effort and have bigger headaches.

The feeling is something that chimpanzees exhibit. It's a very human thing. I am really best described as a humanist...

Its hard to know what chimpanzees exhibit; we can't see into their minds really. The Tao governs chimpansees as it governs humans.

Think of it as an abstract concpet but don't assume it contradicts science rather view science as an attempt to understand the Tao.

[Alkan]

Still, I personally just don't want to adopt anything specific in the whirlwind of ideas that is this world.

[SkunkButt]

[D M]

Hi Skunk,
Feuerbach claimed that worshipping God is worshipping a projection of human values onto the divine, although I don’t believe He is a man-made object. You have a very interesting idea about no one being more human than God if we are made in His image. As a Christian I think that God really was a human (John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us).
Do you believe that the Pope is wrong when he instructs that it’s wrong to think that nature should be valued more than humans?
Thank you for your thoughts.
God Bless,

[SkunkButt]

My reply #18

Does anyone see text there?

I don't.


DM has pulled a fast one on me.   +1

[JustMyron]

Hi Skunk. Very strange. It's not showing up in the source code (what the web browser reads), so nobody will see it in their browser when they're viewing the thread, but your post is stored in the database and retrieved when you click to quote it.

Hi,

This reminds me of something I’ve quoted before:

48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”, but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense.

– Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 2009
I certainly won’t laugh at you though, and you have my respect as a human being.

Have you ever heard of Ludwig Feuerbach? He was an atheist German philosopher in the 19th century who wanted to create an atheistic religion that possessed no supernatural ideas, but which worshipped humanity as a collective whole and honoured human attributes. I think he even had the idea of building temples to humanity where people would go to worship. His ideas influenced the first Soviet commissar of the Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, who made similar claims and stressed that atheism on its own was not sufficient as a replacement of religion, but that they needed ritual and spirituality in their lives or else their lives would become vacuous. Lenin rejected Lunacharsky’s ideas, but evenso many of his ideas found their way into Soviet society when the Communist party decided to invent special ceremonies and rituals meant to mimic corresponding religious rites (eg. marriages, funerals, etc.), but without any acknowledgment of the supernatural.
Thank you for sharing.
God Bless,

Do you realize that worshiping God is worshiping a man made object?
If we are made in God's image then nobody is more human than God.
Besides I don't give much credence to RC moral authority anymore.
[/quote]

Let's see if it shows up now.

EDIT: Huh. Something about D M's quote tag was throwing the software off. When I remove it and make it a regular [ quote ] without specifying who and when, the post appears.

EDIT: And, it shows up in preview, as well...

[JustMyron]

Hi Skunk,
Feuerbach claimed that worshipping God is worshipping a projection of human values onto the divine, although I don’t believe He is a man-made object. You have a very interesting idea about no one being more human than God if we are made in His image. As a Christian I think that God really was a human (John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us).
Do you believe that the Pope is wrong when he instructs that it’s wrong to think that nature should be valued more than humans?
Thank you for your thoughts.
God Bless,

Let's see if this one is quotable.

EDIT: Yup...  

But if I put the quote tag from that broken post in,

does it work?

Well I'll be darned, it does. Something about DM's quote tag + something else in the post, when combined together, is causing the post rendering thingy to break.

EDIT: Got it!

Note to members: Please, if you are going to put things in [ ], put spaces around the [ ] like [ this ]. When the forum software sees an [ followed directly by a number or character (not a space), it says "Hey, this is something I should do something special with, like a quote or an image tag!". And apparently, some things you can put in there will confuse the computer and break your post.

Skunk, I'll PM you about how to make your post appear.

[D M]

I don't know if this helps, but I type in all of the quote tags I use manually rather than using the button at the top. Sometimes I make mistakes when typing them and quickly edit the post after posting to correct it.

God Bless,

[rickymooston]

Still, I personally just don't want to adopt anything specific in the whirlwind of ideas that is this world.

As far as I know, the Tao isn't particularly specific is more of a label for that we want to know. Some Taoists have specific beliefs about it and about the world but that's a different thing.

Inherent in the concept is no assumption about whether for example Gods exist or not. That said, Taoist Gods exist that some Taoists believe in. Others believe in the immortals and Lao-Tzu might be among them. (In actual fact, the consensus is that Lao-Tzu wasn't a single guy.)