Rethinking Perspective

In David’s Day:
The other night we were studying Psalm 96 a glorious psalm proclaiming God’s majesty. The bible study guide that we were using pointed out that many of the people of the day were practicing other religions (not surprising). The study also seemed to indicate that the religious plurisum was a rampant cultural phenomenon then as well as today. The undertones of the questions asked seemed to define plurisum with the belief that ‘there is no one right way to God’. Most of the Christians that I know get really scarred and shut conversations off when statements like that arise. Because of this I have only had a few brief encounters with such subjects.

Start the Conversation:
I think this conversation becomes much easier to have when you shift from the idea that people are worshiping ‘many gods’ to the idea that people have created religion as an attempt to try to understand God (as only one God exists anyhow). Now that we have done this we can examine the religions (including all forms of Christianity) and not argue about one God and many gods. When we look at the way that each religion in its own way falls pretty short of completely capturing all that God is, we become less judgmental.

Truth and Wikipedia:
So what happens with idea of truth when you say that all religions hold at least some good ideas about what God is like? All religions are misguided because men create them. I find more guidance by what Wikipedia has to say on the subject than many of the so-called bible study books I have read on the subject. Here are a few Wikipedia quotes:

“There is not absolute religion, denomination or affiliation.”

“ … no religion is completely true and there is an infinite reality, or God, that is beyond the ability of any single religion to capture with total accuracy. Instead, all religions make an attempt at capturing this reality, but this always occurs within a cultural and historical context that affects the viewpoints of the faith’s holders.”

“Many people hold that it is both permissible and imperative for people of all faiths to develop some form of religious pluralism. They believe that it is intellectually valid to do so because since Biblical times, humanity’s understanding of man’s place in the natural world has changed radically, due to advances in science; since Biblical times, philosophers have challenged humanity to rethink the notion of truth, and the very way that language is used itself…”

This is what I think I know as of today:
My own religion holds many diversions from “trueness” as do many other religions. My bible is a collection of words inspired by God, as it is rightly translated and passed down. As men have created other religions they may have very likely stumbled onto some of the “trueness” of the one God

About Questioning:
If we are not afraid to question our own religious precepts (the rules and traditions we made up) we may learn many valuable lessons. If we are not afraid to questions the religions of others we may learn even more. If man created religion man deserves to be questioned. That is the model that Jesus set as he questioned the religious men of his day.

What if Christians started questioning their own religious practices more often? What happens when they invite others that have practiced another religion to question Christianity along side of them? If it is the inspired word of God that states, ‘knock and the door will be open, see and you shall find’. Maybe we need to start knocking a little louder. Knocking a little harder. Bring our friends who practice other faiths to knock with us. Maybe if we spend more time with others (including those of other faiths) we can understand the ways and the life of Jesus better than we could have on our own.

Well I guess it is official now. Thanks to the Universal Life church of Modesto, CA, of all places I can now officially marry and bury. I may also now be refereed to as Reverend Spain when you see me sipping a Cappuccino at the local coffee shop. Who knows now maybe I can even get special privileges and disaster scenes. I met one dude who used his ordination only when a major disaster struck, then he would run up to the police barricades and scream, “Let me in I am a Minister!”

Liz was the one who prompted the formal ordination. She said that it was a present for my birthday. I know that this gift partly resulted from some of her recent frustrations with formalized versions of spirituality. It didn’t really matter where it came from. It feels great to be recognized by a member of your community. Even though this is an instant internet style ordination I am still very grateful for Liz’s prompting. I hope that I can help our community spiritual formation in the way of Jesus.

I know some that feel as if their ordination gives them some sort of divine power. They start to be looked upon as some sort of demigod either by themselves or their communities. I just have to say this to all those high-and-mightys; “Hey look what I get for free in the internet !!!” So, next time someone tries to pull out their “hey I am ordained and I know everything, and you peon boy know nothing”, sort of crap I can pull my, “hey I am a licensed minister” card out of my pocket and say checkmate to all of that religious rambling.

So the other day I was listening to a Podcast and they were interviewing a fellow with a very thick English accent. The story goes like this there are two guys who sit around all day and all night and make one of the most advanced websites around today.

Their site is called protopage it is designed to be a start page for your web browser provided you use fire fox or i.e.. It does not fair so well on other browsers. Protopage is a news reader, sticky-note manager, and link manager. It also has its own widgets (or one right now anyway) that work very much like apples dashboard widgets. After you play with the site for a while you get a sense of what it can do. Everyone must have a page that your browser opens up to so it may as well be a cool looking page.

Here is my protopage:
http://www.protopage.com/robspain

I just found a very cool website/Software program that basicly works as a visual RSS reader. I have become a big fan of quickly flipping through blogs via a news reader. This program is designed to sit on your desktop and streeem pictures from your favorite blogs, flickr feeds or news sites and wen you see an iteristing picture you just click on it and you are taken to the article. One of the best things about this is that you can embed a player that does the same thing as the desktop aplication into any website.

Slide turns it all into a stream of pictures you can click on. Your job is pretty much just to chill out and watch pictures slide across your screen whenever you want. No matter what you watch, Slide will always bring you the latest updates.

I saw something simmilar to this at Macworld this year. I asked the product demo dude when it was going to do RSS. He said maybe in the next realese. It was my conclusion after talking to the dude for a while that his product was really half baked anyhow. Slide however says that it is a beta but looks fully baked to me.

To all my Friends that blog
When deciding if I wanted to create a new text based blog and do some more writing I thought of all of you and how much more intimately I have gotten to know many of you due to your writings on your blogs. I am very grateful for the time you have taken to sit down at your computers and share thoughts that were often so personal you would not bring them up in face to face conversation.

I received this cartoon in my email the other week and I just though to myself that I have the complete opposite perspective about blogging over the past few years. I feel as though I have gotten to know many people in my life much deeper than if I would not have the privilege of reading their online ramblings.