by Terry 26 Replies latest jw friends
part 3. we make it our habit never buy "expensive" autos. Because later they might make you cry, and that would be just silly.
Some of us do make it our habit to buy them. The car does not make you cry. The repair bills sometimes make your old lady cry.
OK - serious question for Terry:
Can you name any religion that was NOT started by a total amateur? Is there such a thing as a professional religion starter?
Moses was an amateur, wasn't he?
Is there such a thing as a professional religion starter?
That's good! LOL!!
Can you name any religion that was NOT started by a total amateur? Is there such a thing as a professional religion starter?
Religion is insignificance ritualized.
Worship is man's reaction to anthropomorphic awe.
At the core of religious ritual is a quaking appeasement by a lower life form of a higher one. (God=highest in the food chain.)
A sort of bribe transacts. I'll do this and that and it will demonstrate my abasement.
The BROKERS of this power struggle (between pathetic trembling wimp (mere man) and the being so awesome he/she/ it can wipe you ) inserts himself into the transaction.
These BROKERS tell you how to negotiate your lifespan and afterlife entitlements and how much it will cost. (i.e. Broker's fee).
Who are these Brokers? They are gamers, flim-flam artists half-drunk on their power to convince you of what they come up with. Some are simply
well-intentioned mopes who are self-deluded, but, canny. Like a drug dealer who not only deals but uses.
What is the baseline? How do we separate the honest broker from the flim-flam artist?
The HONEST BROKER treats religion, theology and his fellow believers with the highest respect. How? He gets as close to the scientific criteria of theory & practice as possible. Universities are established. History and precedent are honored and taught. Levels of mastery are ordered and maintained and licensed the same as in Law or Medicine. A religious counselor, for example, must study counseling and have knowledge of psychology and family therapy.
The Dishonest Broker is the AMATEUR. They have a sneering contempt for the honest broker and cut corners by pretending they've scored an end run around scholarship by GOING DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE. The worst fraud perpetrated is pretending they've been directly SELECTED BY GOD to receive inside information! Why? No college, no exams, no learning languages, no peer review, no Master's thesis defense--in short, they COUNTERFEIT their bona fides! The Amateur religious counselor knows nothing of human psychology and could care less. Any human weakness merely means there is sin, weakness and a need for more strenuous effort.
That is what I mean by distinguishing the Amateur from the Bona Fide theologian, the honest broker.
This does NOT mean the man with a Master's Degree is not full of birdshit. It means he's intellectually honest enough to treat the birdshit as though
it were the Word of God and well worth 3-5 years of hard study!
If the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses (really Judge Rutherford who co-opted the platform built by C.T.Russell's fortune) had been intellectually honest
about believing he had a red telephone hotline direct to Jehovah's heaven (with the spirit of Pastor Russell on the other end!) he'd have NOTICED HOW WRONG HIS TEACHINGS WERE and stopped making stuff up! But, he IGNORED is many errors. He simply didn't care about what was true.
I liked Rev. Alan Watts. Now there was a real professional. He gave you a bag of snakes and a bottle of oil and let you make your own snake oil.
Martin Buber wasn't so bad nor Teil de Chardin. So, I guess there are some worthy religious professionals.
Religion is agreeing to get together in an elevator with like-minded people and all farting at the same time.
Then, you all have to smile and believe it doesn't stink like the farts in other elevators.
