A Reflection on Mans Role and Rituals

Focusing on rituals is an important spiritual consideration. I am reminded of my foyer where my sons walk in and take off their shoes. Being young, they tend to kick off their shoes only because they will be dunned by their old man if they do not. Thus, they enter and kick off their shoes. Being frivolous boys, however, their shoes land where-ever they land once pulled off, toe to heel as they rush by the transom.

Several times a day, I have occasion to re-enter our home and as I remove and assemble my shoes on the mat, I pick up their carelessly discarded foot coverings and place them, left and right, on the snow mat in the front hall. This, for me, is a ritual that affirms my place in the family. I must say that my ritual pales in comparison to a commitment to facing Mecca five times a day, genuflecting to God and praising His sacred name.

I suspect that somewhere between a constant vigilance to the Kaaba and the periodic assembling of my sons shoes is the place where God lives.

Just a very late night thought :)

Rivals or Brothers?

In examining an ecumenical basis for promoting interfaith communication the first point of opportunity must be the common ancestry these faiths have in their father Abraham. One of the few generalities one can be comfortable with is that all brothers are rivals for their father's affection.

Rivals or brothers, the Qur'an (Q.29.46) confirms that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship the same God. Indeed, they all view God as the creator of the world and all life on it and He is all powerful and all knowing.

Each of these faiths believe that God has sent mankind many prophets, messengers of His word. Each believes that in the end, God demands an accounting from His children for how they have conducted their lives.

In each of these religions, charity is a valued attribute. Prayer is a common central component in all these faiths. They all value honesty and social justice. They all promote loving ones fellow man and cherish the ideal of living life in peace.

In the most basic ideals, each of these religions can make a strong argument for being an ecumenical partner in a growing interfaith movement. The stumbling block that needs to be removed also happened to be a trait all three religions seem to have in common. It is articulated well in a 1992 publication by the World Council of Churches who note that Muslims and Christians tend to view themselves in the ideal and the other in the actual.

http://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/interreligious-dialogue-and-cooperation/interreligious-trust-and-respect/issues-in-christian-muslim-relations-ecumenical-considerations.html

Does one need to believe in the resurreciton to be Christian?

In consideration of the question, is a belief in the resurrection essential to being a Christian, I submit the following transitive idea. Non-Christians around the world believe in resurrection, therefore, the two notions are not married.

According to Ohyun Kwon "the primitive church clearly related the resurrection of Jesus to the old testament." In his research, he has personally studied the Old Testament, The Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha, including the Dead Sea Scrolls in search of references to an early understanding of resurrection. In lieu of full disclosure, he explains that he was only able to personally study those that were written in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic or Latin and those which were written in original languages like Ugaritic found him employing the assistance of his professors.

In his studies, he concludes that the idea of resurrection is not a revelation at the time of Jesus, nor is it imported from Egyptian, Iranian or Hellenistic influences. He suggests that there are fundamental elements of Judaism that form a basis for the germination and emergence of the Christian revelations and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He explains that early ideas of resurrection are "pregnant with the Canaanite mythology of Baal's dying and rising again (Ohyun K. 1984)"

Personally, this discovery transcends the question of needing to be christian to believe in resurrection. Images of John Barleycorn and Dionysus who are both ritualistically rent to pieces as are the fields and vines from which their spirits are derived. Although my denomination derives from the Christian doctrine, I am not a disciple of Jesus. I do, however, derive spiritual sustenance from the changing of the seasons and in particular from the blossoms on my pear tree each spring. For me, there is no greater miracle of resurrection than a quince bush in bloom.

KWON, O. (n.d). THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESURRECTION FAITH IN EARLY JUDAISM (APOCRYPHA, PSEUDEPIGRAPHA, OLD TESTAMENT; ISRAEL). Retrieved from ProQuest: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database.

Do Atheists Care If Others View Them As Religious?

For Atheists who grapple more than academically with the question of atheism as a religion, the question is a matter of human rights. In this discussion I examined atheism as a religion, which, in my estimation does not seem to be terribly important to atheist except from the stand point of having the right not to be distracted by the question. Within this framework, the question of atheism as a religion is relegated to the realm of the legal as opposed to the theological, which may in turn be considered a branch of anthropology to the serious atheist.

As a question of legal precedence, Derek H. points out that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Kaufman v. McCaughtry (2005) that atheism is entitled to the same treatment that traditional religions receive under the Constitution of the United States of America.

This precedence introduces an interesting outline of the history of the "Right to Atheism" as outlined in a 2005 article from the Journal of Church and State, cited below.

For those who wish a quick feeling of numinous awe at the collected human genius of atheist minds, I offer the following URL:
http://brainz.org/50-most-brilliant-atheists-all-time/ perhaps if I eat a few more apples....


Derek H., D. (n.d). Is atheism a religion? Recent judicial perspectives on the constitutional meaning of "religion".(Kaufman v. McCaughtry). Journal of Church and State, 47(4), 707. Retrieved from Gale: Academic OneFile (PowerSearch) database.