Dear WmTrevor,

Sometimes the greatest threat to the irrational is not other irrationals but the rational. Hypatia, Michael Servetus and Giordano Bruno were perceived as threats by the Christians who murdered them.

The Christian perception was correct.

We want to preserve ourselves as individuals, as a group and as an institution. If anything threatens the existence of an individual, group or institution it is a real threat. Christianity depends on accepting the irrational.

Look at the Apostles Creed:

1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:
5. The third day he rose again from the dead:
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost:
9. I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints:
10. The forgiveness of sins:
1l. The resurrection of the body:
12. And the life everlasting. Amen.

It contains a concatenation of improbabilities. Subjected to rational analysis it must be rejected, and any institution which requires accepting such irrationality must also be rejected. The rational is a real threat. To preserve the institution those encouraging its adherents to subject the Creed to rational analysis must be destroyed.

Dear davidf,

Glad to see you are still dipping the lance on this one.

You know I am a fellow lover of the rational, perhaps not as devoted as your good self, but still a defender.

And you may well be right about the Apostle's Creed containing “a concatenation of improbabilities. Subjected to rational analysis it must be rejected, and any institution which requires accepting such irrationality must also be rejected. The rational is a real threat. To preserve the institution those encouraging its adherents to subject the Creed to rational analysis must be destroyed.”

But could I invite you, as you have invited us, to look at it again.

It is a ripper.

A quote from the Psalter Hymn book speaks of its "sublime simplicity, unsurpassable brevity, beautiful order, and liturgical solemnity."

I tend to agree. And all accomplished in appropriately 12 lines, though traditionally I do believe the Amen is on its own line but not numbered.

Instead of just looking at the holes perhaps an appreciation of the lace should not be beyond us. Or am I just too much of a romantic?

Finally if you would permit me the presumption, if there weren't things you and your son could , on occasion, vehemently disagree over then, in my opinion, you would have failed as a parent.

Dear csteele,

I agree. The Apostle’s Creed has “sublime simplicity, unsurpassable brevity, beautiful order, and liturgical solemnity." Those are things I can appreciate aesthetically. However, it is not reasonable to believe in it, and that’s what I was talking about. I think Kublai Khan is splendid in the images it evokes – a damsel with a dulcimer – for he on honeydew has fed and drunk the milk of paradise. I think some of the Greek myths are grand in concept – Prometheus defying the Gods to bring fire to mankind. However, when one looks at these things with the cold light of reality the visions disappear like so many phantoms. I am a fan of nineteenth century English Romantic poetry and was just reading Wordsworth before I saw your email.

Speaking of Prometheus there was a very large painting of Prometheus in the Philadelphia Museum. Prometheus as punishment was bound to a rock and a vulture tore at his liver. Each night his liver would grow back, and the vulture would tear at it again. When my son who I mentioned in an earlier post was about six I took him to the Philadelphia Museum, and we saw that painting. When we got back home his mother asked William what he saw. With a marvellous exhibition of reducing matters to essentials William said, “We saw a bird eating liver.”

A requirement to believe in the Apostle’s Creed, the myth of Prometheus or Kublai Khan is outrageous. Of course no one currently is asked to state a belief in the latter two.

One day I remember a co-worker coming to work looking all bleary eyed. I asked if he had trouble sleeping. He told me he proposed and was accepted with the proviso that he must subscribe to the Nicene Creed. He told me he couldn't sleep thinking about it and finally decided he could accept the creed. I later met the young lady. She had exquisite features and a shapely bosom.

It’s great to hear from you.

Lexi I understand your views but doubt any one can truly understand mine.
My school is and was my own life, it educated me.
In a tiny country township the retirement village for over seas missionary's I saw a bigotry in a Church.
My family Christian, and strongly, became its victims.
But we continued to dream the dream.
I think, maybe I am wrong, as I grew the Churches shrunk.
Word got out about sexual abuse of Children, in our strongest Church's, in our strongest Christian centers.
I had been on my knees in that not Catholic Church, before the one who committed those crimes.
I see , again I may be wrong, a decline in Christianity, an increase in its cash for comfort style.
But no matter.
My fear is we humanity can live without constructed idols that are control mechanisms in the end.
Remember this,if not religion what drives the fear of gays? what drove the Jewish Pogroms?
We humans should be united not driven apart by the one God, every one of the tens of him/her

Dear Belly,

I couldn't agree with you more.

As I've written so many times in the
past:

Secularized organised religions have become,
in many cases, as calcified as other
institutions that form the structure of our
modern world. That's why in many cases they
are rejected. Our religious institutions
have far too often become handmaidens of the
status quo.

I used to think that I was not
religious, and perhaps I am not. I don't like
what organised religion has done to the world.
I have come to see however, that true religion
is internal, not external. The spirit within us
cannot be blamed for the blasphemies carried out
in its name. What some have done in the name of
religion, projecting their neuroses, even
perpetrating evil on the world, does not make
religion as a mystical phenomenon invalid.

"What some have done in the name of
religion, projecting their neuroses, even
perpetrating evil on the world, does not make
religion as a mystical phenomenon invalid."
Lexi not wishing to put words into your mouth. Are you say organised religions are inherently good. The argument of many religious is 'religion is good, its just there were a few bad eggs, here and there." If that was a legitimate argument, could I not use the same argument in defense of National Socialism, being good, its just there was a few bad eggs, here and there. I'm sure there are 'good' Catholics about, but I don't think being Catholic makes them 'good', they would be 'good' even if they were not Catholic, some people are inherently 'good' others inherently 'bad'. Then defining 'good' and 'bad' is a whole new topic.
Praying, going to church and reading the bible etc might give one some psychological comfort, but that's all it does. In its self it will not make a person good by nature, nor will it most likely make them bad by nature, its neutral.