Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sorry about that…
** Although I get email notices about comments to this blog I have often been too busy to do the followup work of even publishing them. I took the time today and while I still can't get free to comment on the comments, I do appreciate them - even the stupid, nasty and fact-deficient ones. Hope to get back soon.
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9 comments:
cool blog. don't let the jerks get you down.
sincerely,
one of your former colleagues at tmc
Oh, they don’t get me down – there's plenty of stupidity out there. Kind of like traffic. You get used to it.
I wonder how many of my "former colleagues" are reading this blog.
PART 1: Dear Mario:
I hope you don't mind the "first name" basis. I remember watching a TMC-produced video of a lecture of yours (this was in the early nineties). My sentiment was such that I immediately felt a deep kinship with you (and the other video lecturers). I also found Science in mid-life.
I was referred here by a member of the "CS Issues2" Yahoo discussion group. I've only begun to touch the surface of what you've shared here, but am impressed with your honesty and clarity.
I might like to begin by asking what year in your archive do the CS comments start? (It appears that you've been contemplating your CS experience for some years.)
Like you, my understanding of the relevance of CS to my life has changed since I encountered your video (about twenty years ago). I will say, however, that I've not found it necessary to entirely jettison the church (though I understand why that would be necessary for you).
It appears that the pretext of my relationship with the church differs from yours. My main apprenticeship in life has been to *meaning*. I have sought to understand why creation carries on as it does, and if there is any purpose to it. Mrs. Eddy's thought seems helpful in this regard, though it was not my first stop in this life's inquiry, nor has it been the last.
The sticky points regarding the CS church's teachings on health have clearly caused you immense pain and suffering, which I regret. I think I learned pretty quickly that I'm not a great spiritual healer, and have not pursued that line in most cases.
I learned about CS after my first major spiritual association (with another group) and came back to it before my second major spiritual association. Both major associations were based on Eastern spiritual traditions (Cont.).
[Part 2]
When I "bombed out" on my second spiritual path, I came back to CS for healing. While I didn't get physical healing, I did get a certain kind of "culture of the relation of heart and mind" which I've found rewarding. It turned out that I joined my branch church the same year I developed a relationship with a third major spiritual path (fourteen years ago). Both that path and my branch church membership continue.
My lack of reading your many posts leaves me at a disadvantage in judging the appropriateness of what I'm going to say. If, as you say, you came into the church solely to develop mental power and to do physical healing, then it may be best to put the church entirely out of mind. But if there had been any hope that the church might help you learn more about love, perhaps you'll find that it did (however indirectly) accomplish something in a helpful direction. You'll have to sort that one out.
My second spiritual path crashed down around me in 1990, and only recently have I begun to recover physically from the bad condition it left me in. Yet the intervening 20+ years have brought insights which have enabled me to see and appreciate many positives which that experience furnished.
I have one last potentially disturbing thing to say. That is, Mrs. Eddy has continued to impress me on the basis of the 100% consistency of her system with certain branches of Indian spiritual teaching. Christian Scientists hate that characterization. Mrs. Eddy herself condemned Eastern teaching, but did not become familiar with its depths. However, everything I've considered of her strongly suggests that she directly experienced planes of spiritual consciousness, and this was the basis of the reliability of her healing work.
It is extremely rare for an individual to have direct experience of the spiritual planes. Healing is commonly practiced in the first through the fourth planes (there are seven, Biblically called "the Seven Heavens"). As one rises in the planes, the ability to raise others to the same level increases, but it is not unlimited, and doesn't continue on the other side of the grave. I therefore regard the failure of the church as simply due to the fact that people aren't at the spiritual level of Mrs. Eddy, and it's not really "their fault," because that level of spiritual accomplishment takes an immense amount of effort and divine grace to accomplish. It took Mrs. Eddy lifetimes to get there (though she would certainly *not* describe it in those terms!).
I Wish You All Success and Satisfaction in Your Ongoing Life's Journey, and Thank You For Being a Part of My Life,
Cam
Hey thanks, Mr McIntosh. You asked when I started blogging as a non-theist. Probably most apparently in 2007. By then I had evolved away from any theological belief, though the steps weren't chronicled here. As for you comments about Eddy, sure everybody has some pieces of reason and value. But here bland rejection of Darwin, the most important figure of her -- and our -- time convinced me not to trust anything she says. Of course, her assumption that there is some kind of benign organizing and directing principle of existence is also damning. As much as we may desire for there to be order and meaning in the universe that desire has no power other than to make it easier to be deluded into thinking there is. Humanism comes closest to a workable accommodation to the blind determinism of life. Basically, it means: do good as much as you can, treat others with respect, don't lie, try to help others, and the like.
As for "the church," totally irrelevant, impotent, silly, almost dead.
Dear Mario:
"Basically, it means: do good as much as you can, treat others with respect, don't lie, try to help others, and the like."
I regard Humanism of the sort you describe as a *very* high ideal, which assures genuine progress on every level to whoever can really live it.
You are on a sound footing. Best Wishes for continuing progress. :)
Cam
"You are on a sound footing" Really??
Anyone who is blind to Christ Jesus and his impact on the world is living in denial.
Forget Mary Baker Eddy, how can one disprove Christ Jesus?? Impossible.
"how can one disprove Christ Jesus?? Impossible. "
Quite possible. There is very little historical verification of the character who stars in the gospels. He could be a composite of several notable people who actually lived. But the nonsense about virgin birth, resurrection and physical healing is totally unverified - and unreasonable. I knew this before the final pillar came down on my faith, but it was a lot easier to acknowledge once it was in the clear.
Mario, you are a smart guy, and I wish you were still a Christian Scientist, because your honesty is needed. I made the previous post about disproving Jesus impossible. It surprises me that you would have - as an intelligent and already seasoned adult -- found a religion and decided to devote your life to it, and then reach a point where you're trying to disprove the very premise of the religion. Christian Science is at the pinnacle of Christianity. There's literally thousands if not millions of people who've experienced Christian Science healings. These didn't just result out of thin air. They have to prove that Jesus and his life purpose were not a myth.
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