(no subject)
It's been a while since I made a thought-journal entry. I mirror these and angst-y entries on my ICS webspace, which I guess I link to from this journal every now and then.
There's so many signs around UCI pertaining to Christianity. I guess they're recruiting flyers and posters for Christian clubs. I pointed out one to my friend today. It's just a plain piece of white printer paper with the words "Is the modern church biblical?" printed on it. There's some additional text about meeting details, but that's irrelevant to me. It bugs me that people can attempt to have a discussion with me about something when we're approaching the discussion with totally different assumptions. The last time I can remember eating on campus, a guy approached me and wanted to tell me about the gospel while I was eating. I told him I was not interested because I'd already given Christianity a shot. He started to leave when I said "not interested" but when I added the clause at the end, he took that as an invitation to sit down and respond. At some point in our discussion, he started to cite bible verses and show how they relate to his life. When he said "the bible says that we should" do something, he lost a lot of credibility with me. He broke a major rule of mine. Have discussions with people using equivalent assumptions. You don't talk to people about abortion if you think it's murder and they don't (and that's the basis for your arguments). The other party won't accept your argument because they don't accept your assumption. In this case, the guy assumed that the bible was the word of god. I did not.
This happened a few months ago and didn't bother me too much. It just stuck in my head as a poorly thought out argument. I felt the same about the poster, since it has one of two possible target audiences. 1) People who accept the bible as their axiom (from Merriam Webster: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth) or 2) Anyone who's curious about an analysis of the modern church. It's possible that they were just targetting category 1, but my guess is that it was 2. People in the second category don't necessarily take the bible as axiom, and that's why I think this was a poor beginning for their analysis.
This incident got me thinking about what my axioms are. Recently I came across a word that I think describes me and some friends pretty well: Antinomian. I believe that what the higher-ups in a religion dictate don't have to be how it is. If I disagree with what they say on a fundamental level, I shouldn't have to do it. If I could choose a religious system which would be truth, that is, if I was for some reason given a choice on what would be the truth in the universe (lets ignore how I'm given this choice), I'd choose something along the lines of a Buddhist view.
I don't subscribe to Buddhism because reincarnation doesn't seem to be a property of this universe. However, I still truly like the idea of karma. If someone has malice towards you, there are a couple of possibilities. One interpretation of karma I've heard is that he may end up receiving your malice in the future. Another is that the two of you may share each other's affection--you'd be a couple, perhaps in another lifetime. Cosmic balance. The idea that no one hurts another without balancing that pain caused with affection. I think this is actually a distortion of the Buddhist views I've heard of. In that view, I think that both the pain caused and the affection experienced are both disruptions from one's path to enlightenment. In any event, if this were a truth, I think there'd be less suffering in the world. If everyone saw a sort of cause-effect relationship between their actions and what happens to them in a moral sense, then maybe there'd be less abusive cupidity in the world.
Essentially, I'd just like to see an end to a lot of human-induced suffering.
There's so many signs around UCI pertaining to Christianity. I guess they're recruiting flyers and posters for Christian clubs. I pointed out one to my friend today. It's just a plain piece of white printer paper with the words "Is the modern church biblical?" printed on it. There's some additional text about meeting details, but that's irrelevant to me. It bugs me that people can attempt to have a discussion with me about something when we're approaching the discussion with totally different assumptions. The last time I can remember eating on campus, a guy approached me and wanted to tell me about the gospel while I was eating. I told him I was not interested because I'd already given Christianity a shot. He started to leave when I said "not interested" but when I added the clause at the end, he took that as an invitation to sit down and respond. At some point in our discussion, he started to cite bible verses and show how they relate to his life. When he said "the bible says that we should" do something, he lost a lot of credibility with me. He broke a major rule of mine. Have discussions with people using equivalent assumptions. You don't talk to people about abortion if you think it's murder and they don't (and that's the basis for your arguments). The other party won't accept your argument because they don't accept your assumption. In this case, the guy assumed that the bible was the word of god. I did not.
This happened a few months ago and didn't bother me too much. It just stuck in my head as a poorly thought out argument. I felt the same about the poster, since it has one of two possible target audiences. 1) People who accept the bible as their axiom (from Merriam Webster: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth) or 2) Anyone who's curious about an analysis of the modern church. It's possible that they were just targetting category 1, but my guess is that it was 2. People in the second category don't necessarily take the bible as axiom, and that's why I think this was a poor beginning for their analysis.
This incident got me thinking about what my axioms are. Recently I came across a word that I think describes me and some friends pretty well: Antinomian. I believe that what the higher-ups in a religion dictate don't have to be how it is. If I disagree with what they say on a fundamental level, I shouldn't have to do it. If I could choose a religious system which would be truth, that is, if I was for some reason given a choice on what would be the truth in the universe (lets ignore how I'm given this choice), I'd choose something along the lines of a Buddhist view.
I don't subscribe to Buddhism because reincarnation doesn't seem to be a property of this universe. However, I still truly like the idea of karma. If someone has malice towards you, there are a couple of possibilities. One interpretation of karma I've heard is that he may end up receiving your malice in the future. Another is that the two of you may share each other's affection--you'd be a couple, perhaps in another lifetime. Cosmic balance. The idea that no one hurts another without balancing that pain caused with affection. I think this is actually a distortion of the Buddhist views I've heard of. In that view, I think that both the pain caused and the affection experienced are both disruptions from one's path to enlightenment. In any event, if this were a truth, I think there'd be less suffering in the world. If everyone saw a sort of cause-effect relationship between their actions and what happens to them in a moral sense, then maybe there'd be less abusive cupidity in the world.
Essentially, I'd just like to see an end to a lot of human-induced suffering.