** you do not have permission to see this link **

** you do not have permission to see this link **

Stephen said
Robert can I make a request?  
There is so much overlap between this thread and my slightly older Liberal Christianity thread that I would like for you to consolidate them. I note that the youngest post under my thread is about a month prior to the oldest in this so there shouldn't be any confusion of conversation. 
Sooo... Unless doing this would be a pain in the butt and if Eric doesn't object, please retain the current title, Sophisticated Christianity, and absorb the older thread. 
Eric I'm not trying to take over your thread but there was some good conversation there related to your concerns that might stimulate even more conversation. And truthfully I hate the word "Liberal", one of those buzz words that can mean so much it means nothing!
Eric, comments? Anyone else? Robert is it doable?
Ps: one reason for my request is that I have some stuff I want to post and why have competing threads? It also seems clear this will be such an ongoing subject of interest.

It's easily doable. I'm not sure how long we should wait for Eric to respond to your questions since he seems to have abandoned this thread after the original post. He has two other posts on the forum—does anyone know where and when he made those posts?

A hermitage of bluebirds (also called a Blessing or Happiness of bluebirds), that’s really what they call a flock of bluebirds. Sounds pretty religious, doesn’t it?

Some lovely terms for a flock of bluebirds and what a delight to see.

With a heated birdbath they are truly a blessed blessing.

What other birds do you get? I seem to recall elsewhere you mentioning hummingbirds.

When I was a kid, we had a large picture window from which we'd observe birds, who we always prayed wouldn't crash into it, at the bird feeders in our yard.  They were mainly sparrows, wrens, robins, red-wing blackbirds, and blue jays.  However, sometimes we'd get a cardinal or a finch. On rarer occasions we'd get hummingbirds. One time I remember seeing ** you do not have permission to see this link **

There is so much overlap between this thread and my slightly older Liberal Christianity thread that I would like for you to consolidate them. I note that the youngest post under my thread is about a month prior to the oldest in this so there shouldn't be any confusion of conversation. 

Sooo... Unless doing this would be a pain in the butt and if Eric doesn't object, please retain the current title, Sophisticated Christianity, and absorb the older thread. 

Eric I'm not trying to take over your thread but there was some good conversation there related to your concerns that might stimulate even more conversation. And truthfully I hate the word "Liberal", one of those buzz words that can mean so much it means nothing!

Eric, comments? Anyone else? Robert is it doable?

Ps: one reason for my request is that I have some stuff I want to post and why have competing threads? It also seems clear this will be such an ongoing subject of interest.

Stephen said
I guess I'm looking at it on a more functional level. How do these views affect your ordinary daily conduct?  For example, you've touched on the Mass. Do you attend Mass regularly?  If so then what does it mean to you?  Even if you don't does it have any meaning for you?  I'm not merely trying to be nosey.  My questions spring from my view of what belief actually is: living your life as if something were true.   Experience, not necessarily knowledge.    

No, not for the last 30 years, except for a two or three attempts get back into the whole church thing between 10 and 15 years ago. Not at all in the last 10, except for at my niece's wedding a couple of months ago, which I described in this thread above. I still believe exactly the same things about the Eucharist that I believed as a Christian so it still has that same meaning for me. In the right setting, I might consider trying again, but there's no real chance of that happening in the current Catholic church in America. I probably couldn't stomach going to Protestant churches, because I really do appreciate the intellectual flexibility and freeness afforded by the Catholic tradition of theological diversity. I frequently tell myself that I might enjoy the community of a liberal synagogue, not because I would convert to Judaism, just for the community aspect, and I have always had a great deal of respect for the Jewish tradition, which is even more mind liberating than Catholicism.

But back when I was a believing Christian and occasionally calling myself a Christian atheist as part of my attachment to apophatic theology, I didn't live any differently than I do now, except for the obvious difference that, as a Franciscan friar, I was celibate and would spend more time in prayer. Formal prayer, only when I had to, if I was visiting a friary and praying the Office communally was expected. The real prayer that I did back then, more of a contemplative experience is not much different than what I still do today musing about life and other deep questions, except I would no longer call it prayer. Other than what I've said about the Eucharist, the other stuff I believed in more concretely as a Christian didn't have much effect on how I lived my life such that it would be much different than how I currently live my life as a retired person.

After I left religious life, and had to go to work and pay mortgages and save for college tuitions, that was very different. If you need to make a lot of money to pay for all that, you need to make compromises with some of your ideals in order to succeed in a business world where profit is the ultimate criterion for the survival of the fittest. You become a cog in a much larger machine and hope that your compromises are offset by those of others in the machine, others that are competing against you, others whose job it is to punish those who compromise too much. That was the biggest difference in my life, but that's a difference compared to being a monk, not a difference from most work-a-day Christian believers. I'm very happy to be retired now and able to pursue all the interests that make me much happier, my backyard birds, the native wildflower meadow I've been cultivating for the past three or four years (less grass to cut) for the butterflies, humming birds, and bees, the artificial backyard pond that we can sit beside for hours with the fish, frogs, tadpoles, and the occasional visiting snake or turtle, and the vernal pool for many, many more tadpoles and salamanders. Tinkering with my old sports car, which is so much fun to drive--that is a big difference from Franciscan life. But not much has changed really. Sitting by my pond for hours or on my porch overlooking the creek is very similar to getting lost in contemplation what we used to call Eucharistic adoration, basically just praying in the presence of blessed sacrament. I also listen to a lot of music, which now pretty much covers the whole house and outside patio.

As for living my life as if something were true, the most important things are still true in pretty much the same way that they were true when I was a believing Christian. God was a mystery now and he's still just as big of a mystery now, but I care about real life and people the same as always. I really don't see much of a difference. 

Robert said

This is just my same-old, same-old apophatic agnosticism that revels in being indistinguishable from atheism. It's been around explicitly since at least the 5th century with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Duns Scotus Eriugena, those hoary old intellectual Kokopelli tricksters who probably just plagiarized and gilded what was already searingly obvious to Anthony of the desert and his neighborly curmudgons, ecstatic in their clinical depression, all for the greater glory of God and his Kingdom that they would never behold. The joy of waiting in want of everything and yet nothing at all. 
  

I guess I'm looking at it on a more functional level. How do these views affect your ordinary daily conduct?  For example, you've touched on the Mass. Do you attend Mass regularly?  If so then what does it mean to you?  Even if you don't does it have any meaning for you?  I'm not merely trying to be nosey.  My questions spring from my view of what belief actually is: living your life as if something were true.   Experience, not necessarily knowledge.  

Stephen said
Even as a believer I would happily refer to myself as a Christian atheist, perhaps even moreso now.
Ok Robert, you didn't really expect that one to glide by me without comment, did you? 
Your path is so obviously different than mine that I am compelled to inquire after your train of thought.  Sooo...consistent with your own comfort level of self-revelation, please expand. 

This is just my same-old, same-old apophatic agnosticism that revels in being indistinguishable from atheism. It's been around explicitly since at least the 5th century with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Duns Scotus Eriugena, those hoary old intellectual Kokopelli tricksters who probably just plagiarized and gilded what was already searingly obvious to Anthony of the desert and his neighborly curmudgons, ecstatic in their clinical depression, all for the greater glory of God and his Kingdom that they would never behold. The joy of waiting in want of everything and yet nothing at all. 

Stephen said
Last night I dreamt there was a mass demonstration going on with hundreds of people marching in the street, all wearing red berets, being led by the Star Trek character in the original show, Scotty, played by actor James Doohan.  
Somebody use your intuitive psychological insight and tell me what that meant!   
  

Well I suppose we all hope that our dreams have some deeper mystic import although it's useful to remember Ebenezer Scrooge attributing his vision of his deceased partner Jacob Marley to "an undigested piece of potato".   The ancients had no concept of a personal psychology but even they distinguished between dreams as mystic visions and dreams caused by self-abuse.  I have a translation of the Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams) by Artemidorus Daldianus, written around 200ish BCE. It is the only comprehensive dream-book to survive more or less intact from classical antiquity.  In it Artemidorus provides us a simple way to distinguish such dreams one from another.  If the dream takes place before midnight it is caused by bad habits: too much wine or spicy food.  After midnight dreams are messages from the gods.   
In that framework my dream was a mystic vision requiring interpretation.  Unfortunately the gods are as inscrutable today as they ever were.  
  

Evidently you were able to determine that this dream of yours occurred after midnight. My intuitive psychological insight suggests that therefore Scotty is indeed a messenger from the gods. According to AI, "A red or maroon beret primarily symbolizes elite military status, specifically airborne, commando, and paratrooper units, representing courage, sacrifice, and blood shed in service. Outside the armed forces, it represents civic action, political movements, or revolutionary leadership." Here we see Scotty, the ultimate voyager through the heavens has parachuted down to an earthly city to lead a rebellion. Obviously a sign of the end times approaching soon! Let me know if you encounter Kirk or Spock or any other TOS divinities!

Stephen said:

I often dream of my deceased father and brother but I have never once dreamed about my mother. ???

It's so strange who appears and who doesn't.  Is there any rhyme or reason to it? I wonder.

I rarely dream of my parents/brothers/sister. For whatever reason, I dream more of the cousins I am particularly close to. My wife shows up quite frequently.  However, besides her, the dream is largely made up of a cast of unknowns with someone I know or knew making a guest appearance at some point.

On the one hand

A desire to have dreamless sleep 

On the other.

In another I arrive at my house after apparently having been absent for months and I wander through rooms I've never seen meeting people I've never met.   The house in the dream is a combination of several of the houses I've lived in over the years.  My parent's house growing up, the multiple houses I've rented in Atlanta, Louisville, etc.  Occasionally the apartments I've lived in appear.  

I often dream of my deceased father and brother but I have never once dreamed about my mother.   ???