Posted by
Sarbajit Roy (testing) on
Sep 20, 2012; 6:05pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Faith-tp7580633p7580644.html
Nick
I'm glad you brought up a) Laws b) Protestant ideas in the context of faith.
AND
That you are still trying to define your beliefs..
I claim with some degree of certainty that at least 90% of the worlds
religions don't set down precisely and completely their "Laws" in the
form of "Rules"/ Beliefs ... BECAUSE it does not suit their
establishments and clergy to do so.
If The 10 Commandments was all that there is to Christianity there
would there be fewer disputes and no organised church.
I am very happy to say that my own religion has gone against the grain
and done so, and
very precisely too at various points of time. Its pertinent to mention
that my religion is a "Protestant" (in the sense of reformist) one and
we have done away with priests, churches and all the organisational
claptrap.
The first time we did so was by a legally registered trust deed
drafted by 10 of the best legal brains in India at the time (all of
whom were members of the faith) on January 8, 1830. It was a most
remarkable document for its time and is so even today. This secular
document was the basis for my country's "Tea Party" which allowed us
to begin to boot out our British:colonisers (who were playing religion
centric divide and rule politics to exploit us) eventually.
Today our Beliefs are very few
http://brahmo.org/brahmo-prime-principles.htmland the Rules of the faith are crisp and precise (to Easterners at least)
http://brahmo.org/brahmo-articles-faith.htmlWe believe (like Al Qaeda or Chairman Mao) that an army which travels
lightly (and simply) and can blend among the people travels furthest
and fastest. Our annual adherent growth is hugely positive y-o-y
despite that we don't proselytize or convert.
Our Rules are very puzzling to Westerners who hear them. They are
surprised to hear that our first rule is "Brahmos embrace
righteousness as the only way of life". "Righteousness" apparently has
a negative connotation in the West. Whereas to us, it conveys
something entirely different we call "Dharma" referring to the
"power/force" behind the natural balancing fields of "positive" and
"negative" (aka. entropy and non-entropy) streams which propel this
universe. Think Yoda instructing young Master Luke the first time.
Less tolerant / trusting / evolved faiths however would setup a host
of illogical rules like
Thou shall not steal / kill / curse/ smoke / drink / covet thy
neighbour's camel / wife etc. to the point of reductionism.
Hope this helps you to define / understand your faith's beliefs a
little better.
Sarbajit
On 9/20/12, Nicholas Thompson <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> Well, it would be nice to answer that action on our personal moral
> principles should cease, when it breaks the law.
>
> The trouble is, there are laws and there are laws.
>
> The Protestant idea that each of us has a direct and personal obligation to
> the law, no matter what a duly appointed law enforcement officer may tell
> us, makes thinking about these issues VERY complicated. Back in the sixties
> we were taught that we might be obligated to "throw our bodies" on the
> machine to stop the vietnam war. I am not sure to what higher law we
> appealed in those days but I vaguely remember that it had to do with the
> Nuremburg trials. I belief that in military law a soldier is obligated to
> DISOBEY a law that is illegal? Whether the soldier gets a commendation for
> disobedience or shot for it depends, in this case, on whether a military
> judge, in the peace and quiet of a courtroom, comes to agree with the
> decision of the soldier, which may have been made in a split-second during
> the chaos of a battle. We have to have a way of thinking about this that
> rules in civil disobedience but rules OUT stalking abortion providers.
>
> Be careful to take note of how I am reasoning here. I am reasoning
> backwards from my own actions to some principle that would justify them.
> Pretty shoddy, as a form of reasoning, but, if one believes that beliefs
> just are those principles implied by one's actions, then what I am saying
> here makes more sense. I am trying to discover what my beliefs ARE, not
> trying to justify them. The pragmatist Justice, Oliver Wendel Holmes,
> famously said that Justice is what judges do [in the long run, if they
> think
> carefully and well about precedent and the facts of each individual case].
> On this account, our beliefs get justified by their long term success. By
> "long term" I mean generations and generations and by "our" I mean the
> species. This is the pragmatist doctrine of truth.
>
> I think the reason that people live about 60 years beyond youth is that it
> takes about that long for the high=minded protestations of one's youth to
> come home to roost. I cannot escape the feeling that in some strange sense
> I am personally responsible for the Tea Party. And bombing abortion
> clinics. But this s no doubt liberal guilt gone mad. I guess we got THAT
> from the quakers?
>
> Nick
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