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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A not so personal relationship with God/Jesus
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Although you will have those (as we've seen here) who don't hear from God, or think the "personal relationship" thing means God is supposed to answer all prayers/no suffering thing....
This thread has helped me to understand a bit better were people who claim a "personal relationship" are coming from.
But my problem with this is not Theodicy.
Its arbitrariness. I consider a non interventionist God much easier to swallow than
a God that heals the Arthritis of this person but
ignores that child's cancer. That talks to this person but ignores decades of faith from a different person.
That happens to talk to people in churches that preach that kind of thing but does not in churches that don't.
This reminds me that when UFO's were in fashion
some people claimed that people who used to see angels now were seeing Aliens. And the fact that after Close Encounters the Aliens that people saw started looking a lot like the ones in that movie.
There has been some very good posts on this thread about the fact that how we experience the world is a lot more subjective than we think.
I know this cuts both ways. If your starting assumption is skepticism it will color what you see as well.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Although you will have those (as we've seen here) who don't hear from God, or think the "personal relationship" thing means God is supposed to answer all prayers/no suffering thing....
This thread has helped me to understand a bit better were people who claim a "personal relationship" are coming from.
But my problem with this is not Theodicy.
Its arbitrariness. I consider a non interventionist God much easier to swallow than
a God that heals the Arthritis of this person but
ignores that child's cancer. That talks to this person but ignores decades of faith from a different person.
That happens to talk to people in churches that preach that kind of thing but does not in churches that don't.
This reminds me that when UFO's were in fashion
some people claimed that people who used to see angels now were seeing Aliens. And the fact that after Close Encounters the Aliens that people saw started looking a lot like the ones in that movie.
There has been some very good posts on this thread about the fact that how we experience the world is a lot more subjective than we think.
I know this cuts both ways. If your starting assumption is skepticism it will color what you see as well.
I think what you're describing IS the problem of theodicy.
I would certainly not say-- nor would I think anyone here would say-- that those who speak of their faith in these particular terms ("having a personal relationship", "hearing from God") are more favored by God in any way. As you have seen from the testimonies here, there is certainly no indication that those who describe their experience in these terms have any greater likelihood of having their prayers answered favorably.
Again, my default assumption is that God is speaking to everyone in the world, and particularly to those who love and follow him. The way that happens is different for each of us (the "pathways" thing) and we use different words to describe/name those experiences, dividing us further. But I believe it is the same God speaking and moving thru us all.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Lamb Chopped, thanks for your thoughts and the sense of "otherness" that is important in your relating with God.
I have a sense in certain situations that who I am is at stake. That's a bit dramatic! But there is the manage the budget, change the car, deal with tax, get on with the nasty people stuff, and then there is the stuff that's about what I believe in, care about, build my life about. Change career, commit to support a project, move to another country, reshape your marriage. There are decisions that will affect who I am in ten years. There are things that I can only do if I am willing to develop, learn and change.
In these already personal decisions it feels to me that God is involved, and in a good way. It feels that when I am able to follow the thin strand of God through life I am in tune, able to become a person I like more, feel more at peace with my role in life. They are areas of life that are about who I am, how well I fit, what I believe in and want to put myself into. In them, when it goes well, I feel I am finding myself and coming closer to God by the same means. I wonder if that's anything like your sense of otherness. For me it's about a sense of fit with the world, risk, and an immense sense of privilege.
I have only found it at periods of my life. And I should say that I don't believe God is a person or has a will like ours or answers prayer requests or intervenes in the world. But at these times I do have a sense that I am in touch with a happy mystery that embraces me and all the world.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
oh dear. It sounds lovely. But really all I meant was that the -- impressions -- seemed to be originating somewhere other than me! You know how there's a kind of taste to your own thoughts, writing, personality? A subtle but there flavor that allows me, at least, to identify a long-lost piece of my own writing before I check the name on it. As in, "hey, that sounds really familiar..." and it's not the subject matter.
Or maybe compare it to the smell of home, or your own car or clothing. If there was a change, you'd notice, though not always consciously.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I can't imagine thinking that an impression, which after all is in my mind, has come from anywhere else. Apart from the influences of others, which are always filtered through my own thinking.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If God withdrew, how would we know?
I can't not believe in Him. He IS. I can have existential moments of blind terror where He isn't, but they aren't sustainable. The doubt isn't sustainable. I don't want it to be, but what's that got to do with anything? So I put that down to disposition. A neutral thing. I'm just lucky.
I find the afterlife utterly dis-believable. Meaningless. The physics of it. The biology. The psychology. But I just can't help believing that all will be well.
Is that Him or me?
Well, He is the ground of being. He does think me thinking. I like the idea of Him. But I existentially, dispositionally would. Who wouldn't? If you knew my God you'd like Him too. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) unless you were IngoB.
Doesn't everyone like their God? Their Jesus? I like mine more and more.
In my previous church the assistant vicar would talk about talking about her problems to God in which He answered her with answers to her problems. I envy that ... simplicity. And I have been EXTREMELY, ecstatically grateful for realizations. They've taken 60-odd years. They couldn't be rushed. I had to go through all the weakness and ignorance and suffering of causing suffering through them. Under the sun.
I know that He is helplessly kind, meaning kindly helpless and in that wants us to be the same. And we will be and are because we are made in His image.
Is He grateful?
Will we make a go of it in the next ten thousand years? Will we begin to take control of our evolution toward kindness?
But I digress. As in so many areas, we're all saying the same thing. God shines and we rise to Him from deep down where He isn't. Except as us. Just as He isn't in the car parking.
And is.
So it is with however we invoke Him. Whatever story we make up. He's there despite it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
I'm not explaining this very well, but basically, I'm meaning, surely what you're really meant to be thankful about with respect to God is the fact of your salvation.
You say that like once we are thankful for that, our thankfulness can end. We are commanded to give thanks at all times and for everything (Eph 5:20). The phrase "give thanks to the Lord for He is good, his mercy endures forever" is almost a mantra in the old testament, mostly in Chronicles and in the Psalms but not exclusively.
Most of the passages in the Bible using the word "thank" are not about thanking God for our salvation but rather thanking God for being God.
quote:
this point of view doesn't require any sort of intense personal relationship with the Big Man Up There.
That's comforting, I guess, but I'd rather believe what's right than what obviates unpleasant connotations.
quote:
I have to report it hasn't turned out to be any sort of problem at all. You don't have to be thankful toward anything - you can just be thankful.
I had this conversation on another thread and it ended unpleasantly. My feeling is that it makes no sense to say you are thankful but not to anybody. Maybe it works in Hebrew. It doesn't work in English -- the word needs an object. It's like saying you can give a gift without there being a recipient. No you can't -- part of what "give" means is that you give it TO somebody (or something).
quote:
But although it doesn't make him a monster, if the spreading around of blessings and/or protection is apparently capricious, and those who benefit are allowed to be thankful, are those who don't benefit allowed to question/complain?
If we judge by the Psalms, I'd have to say yes, they are so allowed.
quote:
I mean, if your friend could have helped you with something really important to you, but didn't, and never offered any sort explanation as to why, and indeed stonewalled any attempt by you to bring up the issue, would you still consider them a friend?
It rather depends on how much I trust them. A really good friend, I would trust to have reasons of some sort for what they did. A nodding acquaintance, heck no.
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
For my money, Belle Ringer has said the most helpful thing in the entire thread. I don't take what she's said as gloating that she has an experience that I don't, or that she has more favor with God. I hear her as acknowledging that we don't all have the same experience -- and that that's OK, not a failing on the part of those of us who don't have the personal relationship experience.
I certainly hope this is true because I do not have a personal relationship with God. At least not in the way that I have ever heard it defined. I have never heard the still small voice or been sure this-and-such was a clear prompting etc. etc. I have had coincidences that I felt at the time were from God, but in retrospect they were coincidences. In short, I do not have a personal relationship with God. However I believe I encounter God in the Eucharistic chalice. And in the love of other human beings. I just wouldn't call that a "personal relationship" in the sense in which that term is generally used in discussions such as this one.
Okay, I once felt something that in retrospect I would call numinous -- one of those simple church services that starts in darkness and everybody lights a candle from the next person until the room is filled with light. I was maybe 10, 11 years old. It felt magical. That's not enough to hang a personal relationship with God on, however.
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
However to elide from the idea that God has communication with us therefore he must answer specific prayers affirmatively is as dangerous. It is no good saying "Because God did not answer this prayer affirmatively, he does not communicate with humans". Indeed it seems to me to maintain God must do that is to maintain God is not a person in the theological sense.
I have never thought of this in quite this way. This is a good insight.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Do you think thankfulness can be overdone or of an unhealthy sort, Mousethief?
Some Christian traditions have sometimes got down, rolled around and got all squelchy in a smothering sense of unworthiness. I am a worm, without merit, totally undeserving, nothing I can bring, loathsome sinner that I am.
Thankfulness ought to be compatible with a sense of personal dignity and God's loving regard. Sometimes it seems to be insisted on in order to reinforce an immature dependency.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
We are totally dependent on many things - the continued presence of the atmosphere and the ozone layer, the continued presence of the complex web of food supply and availability of food, transport communications... Friends.
Having a daily sense of dependency on God is actually imo a state of knowing the truth of the matter, and being realistic.
If that were replaced by a sense of the true degree of dependency I have on so many things I have no control over, I'm not sure that would be very useful. We ignore a lot of things to make life bearable and live-able. In fact, the whole human sensory and nervous system is based around inhibition and filtering. "Ignorance is bliss".
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Do you think thankfulness can be overdone or of an unhealthy sort, Mousethief?
Some Christian traditions have sometimes got down, rolled around and got all squelchy in a smothering sense of unworthiness. I am a worm, without merit, totally undeserving, nothing I can bring, loathsome sinner that I am.
I'm not sure that that has a lot to do with thankfulness. It may drag thankfulness into it, but one can be thankful without groveling. One can be extremely thankful without that kind of thing. That is not the natural state of one end of the thankfulness continuum. It's not like, once you get more thankful than 0.04, you get "I am a worm" syndrome.
It's not even the natural end of the worthiness spectrum. I can feel completely unworthy of God's love without that kind of nonsense. What it is, is focusing on oneself instead of on God. Look how grovelly I am. I can do abasement really well, God. Look at me. Me me me. It's not humility at all, it's a twisted kind of pride.
So in answer, yes, we are quite capable of twisting things like humility and thankfulness. But that says nothing at all about humility and thankfulness or even the right proportions of either. It just says we humans are capable of twisting good things.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So in answer, yes, we are quite capable of twisting things like humility and thankfulness. But that says nothing at all about humility and thankfulness or even the right proportions of either. It just says we humans are capable of twisting good things.
I'm of a mind to think that all sin is a result of our corrupting what's good.
And we can turn everything around to point at ourselves instead of God, whether it's the 'me me me' of look how well I can do humble, or the 'me, me, me' of look how close I am to God as I got this parking space, or the 'me, me, me' of how much I do in good works, etc etc.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I was joking with Josephine last night about writing a contemporary worship song that captures the true spirit of 21st century American Christianity. To a waltz tempo:
Jesus loves me, me, me
He died for me, me, me
On Calvary, ree, ree,
He died for me, me, me.
[ 07. February 2015, 15:54: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
![[Smile]](smile.gif) it ain't just the You Ess of Ay.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The trouble is, Mousethief, there are already worse ones than that in circulation.
Even the satirical talents of the man behind the Onion Dome couldn't come up with anything worse than some of the actual examples that are already out there ...
![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I was joking with Josephine last night about writing a contemporary worship song that captures the true spirit of 21st century American Christianity. To a waltz tempo:
Jesus loves me, me, me
He died for me, me, me
On Calvary, ree, ree,
He died for me, me, me.
That reminds me of this
joke about worship wars that's been going around for some time.
But seriously, isn't this a dead horse by now?
The "contemporary worship is so me-centered, all 'Jesus is my boyfriend'" generalization is so ubiquitous that I started years ago having my intro. to theology students do an extensive comparison of the lyrics of the 20 most popular praise songs that year vs. the 20 most popular traditional hymns. Guess what they find-- every single year? About the same mix of individualistic vs. communal vs. praise; about the same mix of themes. Basically, there are some really crappy praise songs out there, and some really crappy traditional hymns as well-- musically as well as theologically. And there are some really profoundly deep ones in both genres. The task of the worship leader/ choir director is to choose wisely along the genre that makes sense for your particular congregation/ tradition.
[ 07. February 2015, 20:33: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, but Mousethief is Orthodox, he won't be singing anything composed after 1,000 AD. The tunes will be more recent though. To the Orthodox most Western hymnody sounds too sentimental.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
Ahem. As has been pointed out, the Yet more crappy choruses, wonky worship-songs and horrible hymns thread is that way =====>
And Gamaliel, you have within recent memory received adminly admonishment for trying to tell us what other posters do or don't do, sing or don't sing, etc. when they are quite capable of answering for themselves. I suggest you don't start doing so again.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Sorry, Eutychus and everybody else.
Gamaliel, we have lots of new hymns. Every time a saint is sainted (actually usually before), they get a troparion and kontakion written for them. But that's all I'll say here lest Eutychus rap me on the knuckles with his ruler.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Fair do's - yes, I was aware of new material whenever Saints are sainted or canonised ... my comment was really that what material is added tends to be in line with older forms ...
But as Eutychus has reminded us, this is a tangent and it ain't my place to answer for what others do or don't do, sing or don't sing.
(Ducks behind parapet)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
On, hopefully, a less tangential note - this latest exchange has set me musing on how we all - inevitably - frame or present our beliefs/feelings etc within the context of some framework or other.
I know that's a 'given' but I'd suggest that even claims of 'unmediated' revelations or direct encounters are in fact mediated in some way. But I have to be careful in how I express that lest it sound as if I'm setting myself up as judge and jury on other people's views and experiences - which isn't my intention.
As Jengie Jon has observed, discourse about God, theology etc is invariably 'social' - how can it be otherwise? So all our responses and ways of describing our encounter with the divine or the apprehension of spiritual things are bound to be couched within some wider, socialised framework.
People are 'socialised into the kingdom' as the academic sociologist, Dr Andrew Walker puts it in one of his books ...
I was very taken one time, reading the journal of one of Wesley's early adjutants - the redoubtable stone-mason, John Nelson, by how similar - in many ways - his conversion account was to my own ... not in detail and circumstance but in the way he described and 'framed' these things.
I was in my mid-20s at that time and thought, 'how marvellous, this guy's describing similar experiences to mine and he was writing 250 years ago ...'
I'd still buy that, to an extent, but these days would regard it somewhat differently - I was essentially inheriting the kind of born-again, revivalist language and frames of reference that had emerged in the mid-18th century. That's not to say the experience wasn't 'real' ... simply that in order to describe or make sense of it I inevitably had to resort back to historical or traditional precedent - in this case Wesleyan style revivalism.
What does this have to do with a 'relationship with God'? Well, I'd suggest that the relational aspect certainly exists and is there right from the outset of the Judeo-Christian tradition - 'Thou shalt LOVE the LORD thy God ... and thy neighbour as thyself ...'
Ok, I know 'love' in this context isn't necessarily about goo-ey feelings or even tangible apprehension of the divine ... if we accept that such a thing exists (I do, but with caveats) - but whatever else it's about it is surely relational.
Mousethief tells us that he doesn't have a 'personal relationship' with God in the way that some here describe - but that he does in some way apprehend or encounter God in the Eucharist. Which strikes me as a relational encounter - or at least, one which goes beyond the purely cerebral apprehension of concepts we find in books and discourse ...
I hope that doesn't sound like I'm telling others what they believe or do or don't do - that's certainly not my intention ...
I hope I'm simply reflecting and engaging with what others have said and how they see things.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Not sure about a relationship aspect to Eucharist. It doesn't seem personal at all to me, rather it seems more like something substantially different than personal. More like the times when distractions are gone, and there's a special focus. I've had parallel experiences in selected other situations, eg, in the Canadian north, where the quality of environment seems to create a sensation of time stopping and realization of something beyond my capacity to articulate what's happening let alone put it into words.
For me in the communion, this is the consecration time with a demarked ending when "The gifts of God for the people of God" is said. The distribution of elements seeming like a denouement after the climax of plot in a novel or play.
There is in no sense a personal aspect to it. The closest I can suggest is a sense of something very ancient, but also future, without actual time or location. Personality does not seem part of it.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I can buy that. Perhaps 'connection' or epiphany might be a better term than 'personal'.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
It becomes personal for me with the statement "broken for you" and "shed for you".
It is impersonal and timeless for choirs of angels and heaven and earth, but when it comes down to broken and shed for *you* the claim is personal.
Some will say it is a lie, of course, but for myself I believe it and therefore experience it as a statement made about me as a person.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm having a hard time thinking what could be more personal than someone's body. In the Eucharist my body meets his Body. Seems awfully personal to me.
[ 08. February 2015, 19:39: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I am not getting the relational aspect per how we relate as humans. More like a point of contact. The body aspect is the eucharist is one of those "what you think it is" or decide to go for some authority's version. For me I can accept this is a point of contact, not a telationship.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I find the Baptist serving of bread and wine the relational bit, the actual serving. Care is taken to do it calmly and without fuss, or hurry, to miss no one out unless they want to be missed out, to be aware of special needs - wee cuppies are a challenge to some, perhaps impossible if you have Parkinson's. The deacons catch people's eyes as they pass among them. There are smiles. Everyone watches or is still. No one minds the slow progress of the tray of wine up and down the pews, like a shuttle weaving textile out of the human warp.
I do not believe in miracles or transubstantiation, but it makes easy sense to me to talk of God's presence in the serving.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I am not getting the relational aspect per how we relate as humans. More like a point of contact. The body aspect is the eucharist is one of those "what you think it is" or decide to go for some authority's version. For me I can accept this is a point of contact, not a telationship.
A relationship isn't necessarily one between individuals, persons, or things. Wiktionary's first definition of the word doesn't even use individuals in it's example:
quote:
1. Connection or association; the condition of being related.
2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.
I see people discuss their relationship with food all the time, for example. Even if the Eucharist were merely food (which I don't believe) people would still have relationship with it growing out the memories, associations, frequencies of attendance, context, etc. Funnily enough, that's the same way human relationships develop between individuals. It's not like you meet someone for the first time every time you meet him. There's a history and web of associations built over the course of time.
It doesn't matter if you don't believe that the Eucharist is objectively the Body and Blood of Christ. That's not the question of your thread, supposedly. The point is people can and do build a relationship with it or rather Him in the Eucharist.
[ 08. February 2015, 20:48: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I am considering relationship to contain interaction. Your technical definition is too broad.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I am considering relationship to contain interaction. Your technical definition is too broad.
So if my wife were, god forbid, to slide into a coma and not react in any way to outside stimuli, we would no longer have a relationship? If I went to the hospital every day and held her hand for six hours, that would be merely contact. According to your technical definition.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I can see what you're getting at, hatless, but would observe - as I'm sure you would too - that the sharing, helping one another aspect isn't restricted to Baptist or congregational settings ... you'll find equivalents of it even in the most ceremonial or sacramentalist of settings ... someone helping an elderly or infirm person to the communion rail, a priest taking communion to the house-bound ... etc etc.
It's another of these both/and things, I think.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm not so sure how far to take all this, mind.
I remember reading something about King Henry III who was, apparently, noted for his piety. However, the King would get uncomfortable during sermons and would exhort preachers to hurry up and get on with it ... yet he would receive Mass about two or three times a day.
I'm not sure how canonically valid that was or is ... but still ... that's what he used to do.
When a cleric queried him about this he is said to have replied, 'Why should a man listen to stories about his friend when he can go and meet him face-to-face?'
Of course, in more 'Reformed' times and settings, he'd have regarded the sermon or the Bible-reading as a place of 'encounter' as well as the Eucharist but I think I can see something in what he was apparently trying to say ... there's something in the 'physicality' of the action that takes it beyond passive reception somehow ...
I think this applies whether we see these things in objectively miraculous or transubstantiatory terms or as a 'mere memorial' - whatever 'mere' means in that context.
But then, I'm all wibbly-wobbly and Anglican-ish ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
]So if my wife were, god forbid, to slide into a coma and not react in any way to outside stimuli, we would no longer have a relationship? If I went to the hospital every day and held her hand for six hours, that would be merely contact. According to your technical definition.
That's a really hard example. In my experience of people dying with memory loss (admittedly not much), it is hard on relatives for the very reason that they no longer have a relationship with the patient.
I can't really imagine what it is like to have a loved-on in a coma, but it must be really hard to imagine that as an ongoing relationship if there is no evidence of two-way communication.
In a (not really very) similar way, it must be hard to think of oneself in a relationship with an out-of-communication sailor at sea for months at a time. But then I guess one is not not in a relationship in either of those cases, it has been suspended, hopefully temporarily.
Not sure.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Does my relationship with my wife cease to exist when she's asleep, and spring back into being when she's awake? This is all becoming rather surreal. It sounds like for you relationship isn't so much a noun as a verb. And when you're not doing it, currently, right now, in a two-way sort of manner, it doesn't exist.
If I'm on the phone with my mate and he puts it on speakerphone and then puts it on "mute" because there's noise in his office, but he's still listening to me rhapsodize about the movie I just saw, once he hits the "mute" button we cease to be in relationship, according to your definition.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
If she'd never to your knowledge been conscious, there was no certain prospect she ever would, and in fact you've never found the hospital where she allegedly is held, but only had the say-so of others that she was definitely there, and definitely alive, your analogy would be closer to how I often feel about God.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Does my relationship with my wife cease to exist when she's asleep, and spring back into being when she's awake? This is all becoming rather surreal. It sounds like for you relationship isn't so much a noun as a verb. And when you're not doing it, currently, right now, in a two-way sort of manner, it doesn't exist.
You know, I think I do actually believe that. A relationship is two-way. Sleep is a brief interruption in a relationship, being away from home on a ship is a longer one, a long coma is a longer one still.
Usually one can get over the very slight bump in a relationship when someone is awake when someone else is asleep, but that's quite different to relating to someone with memory loss or in a coma.
quote:
If I'm on the phone with my mate and he puts it on speakerphone and then puts it on "mute" because there's noise in his office, but he's still listening to me rhapsodize about the movie I just saw, once he hits the "mute" button we cease to be in relationship, according to your definition.
Yeah, I don't think that's a very good example - because you are still communicating, albeit very temporarily one-way.
I guess it is a spectrum with your example at one extreme and someone in a coma for years at the other.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So if my wife were, god forbid, to slide into a coma and not react in any way to outside stimuli, we would no longer have a relationship? If I went to the hospital every day and held her hand for six hours, that would be merely contact. According to your technical definition.
No, you're still in the relationship with her. You have an history of interaction and carry around in your memory and behaviour patterns little internalized bits of her voice, manner and influence. The direct experiences of her make these internalized bits resonate with the memory of her.
The same is supposed to hold true for the representation of God isn't it? That this heavenly father resembles, not himself, but the projection of generalized 'good fathers', except that there isn't direct experience to have an internalized representation of God as father, only supposition and projection of what God is supposed to be like. The people who write about 'object relations' discuss this more, where object oddly means other people in that context.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, but Mousethief is Orthodox, he won't be singing anything composed after 1,000 AD. The tunes will be more recent though. To the Orthodox most Western hymnody sounds too sentimental.
Someone please try to argue that the Kedrov Our Father is *not* sentimental.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
That's Russian so sentimentality is ok. Likewise, Welsh sentimentality is ok. But this is a tangent.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, but Mousethief is Orthodox, he won't be singing anything composed after 1,000 AD. The tunes will be more recent though. To the Orthodox most Western hymnody sounds too sentimental.
Someone please try to argue that the Kedrov Our Father is *not* sentimental.
I think he meant the words. Which are the same in every Our Father. Kedrov's is WONderful. I wish we sang it more often. Just oozing with schmalz.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Usually one can get over the very slight bump in a relationship when someone is awake when someone else is asleep, but that's quite different to relating to someone with memory loss or in a coma.
"Relating to" and "being in a relationship with" are not synonymous.
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So if my wife were, god forbid, to slide into a coma and not react in any way to outside stimuli, we would no longer have a relationship? If I went to the hospital every day and held her hand for six hours, that would be merely contact. According to your technical definition.
No, you're still in the relationship with her. You have an history of interaction and carry around in your memory and behaviour patterns little internalized bits of her voice, manner and influence. The direct experiences of her make these internalized bits resonate with the memory of her.
You would seem to be changing your definition. First it's not a relationship unless it's two way. Now it's not a relationship unless it's two way, or at least you can remember it once being two way.
quote:
The same is supposed to hold true for the representation of God isn't it? That this heavenly father resembles, not himself, but the projection of generalized 'good fathers', except that there isn't direct experience to have an internalized representation of God as father, only supposition and projection of what God is supposed to be like.
I have no idea what this means. I can't even parse this enough to ask a question about it, except: Huh?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I think it boils down to God isn't real. Having projected the idea of God all by ourselves we can't have a relationship with him/her/it.
My problem is that there's a premise I don't agree with in the reasoning. I think God is real.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think it boils down to God isn't real. Having projected the idea of God all by ourselves we can't have a relationship with him/her/it.
My problem is that there's a premise I don't agree with in the reasoning. I think God is real.
Yeah for a theist that's a bit of a non-starter. Well no WONDER you can't have a personal relationship with God! Turns out he doesn't exist! Well doesn't that just explain everything. Solves the whole dilemma in one swell foop.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I am considering relationship to contain interaction. Your technical definition is too broad.
Nope. It's not my technical definition. It's the basic, common, regular definition of the word. It involves interaction too. Once two or more things, object, or persons are connected or associated, or are in "the condition of being related" they've interacted. What is "point of contact" other than a kind of interaction? Box A touched Box B. That's interaction. It's also a relationship: Box A is the box that touched Box B.
Think of your favorite movie or book. Each time you read or watch it, discuss it, think about the characters, or imagine what it would be like to be in a character's place, etc., you've interacted with it. Even if the book or movie isn't going to invite you out for long walks on the beach and some frozen yogurt afterwards.
Now, you did qualify it by stating "personal relationship". Anybody who believes he has a personal relationship with God is going to believe that God is a person. That you don't believe it is so doesn't matter if you're genuinely interested in learning about how other people view their personal relationship with God.
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I get it that we don't think of a relationship as a personal relationship unless there is two way interaction. I've seen people visit husbands or wives or parents far less if there is no recognition of who they are in the eyes or the words when they do so. If I were no longer aware of God's presence for a long period of time, and I had to rely on my memories of the times I had been in the past, could I continue to say that I was living within a personal relationship with God? I'm not sure I could. I might then be more vulnerable and exposed to those who want to convince me that I imagined the intimate moments. It would not follow that I would question the existence of God. I am witness to too many incidents through which I have become convinced. But I may, like the op, begin to question whether God really is immanent as well as transcendent.
This thread has helped me to see this. I know that we must sometimes have desert experiences in which God seems absent, it seems to be necessary for our spiritual growth and for the good of the relationship, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to complain about the unfairness of that, as per Job, especially if all seems to be going wrong in our lives at the same time. In fact, as in the book of Job, it would be a good time to question everything, to throw out immature or distorted views of who God is, until coming to the place of 'God just is, we don't know God's mind or how the bigger picture looks in God's sight, we either humble ourselves and serve God or walk away'. Which isn't satisfactory to us, but it probably has to do, in the end.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Two things or objects might interact and be in relationship, but that's never going to happen quite like that with God, because God is not a thing or object. And this is making me wonder if part of the problem with relationship talk is that it treats God too much as an object.
Buber says God can only ever be known as subject. This is relational talk, but highly asymmetrical. God isn't available for our approach. We may say that we have been known by God, but we can't say that we are in a relationship with God as if it were something reliable and straightforward from out point of view.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
...If I were no longer aware of God's presence for a long period of time...
Now imagine if you had never been aware of it, except perhaps for fleeting seconds long ago that might equally have been low blood sugar or mere excitement, and aren't exactly sure what being aware of it would feel like anyway...
You might see how bizarre this "personal relationship" stuff seems to some of us.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
God is available for our approach, Hatless, but not on demand.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Now imagine if you had never been aware of it, except perhaps for fleeting seconds long ago that might equally have been low blood sugar or mere excitement, and aren't exactly sure what being aware of it would feel like anyway...
You might see how bizarre this "personal relationship" stuff seems to some of us.
I do get it, Karl. Only after years of searching and prayer did I come to the place of 'personal relationship', by the grace of God.
I understand that some will never 'see' Jesus (by which I translate 'sense the presence of'), and yet believe, perhaps convinced of God's existence through others, while never becoming conscious of God's presence themselves. Jesus said that such people are blessed.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Jesus said that such people are blessed.
Well, that's ok then. Kind of like how having someone say 'sorry' after crashing their car into yours fixes up all the dents and the broken glass and so on.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
So Jesus not only took the wheel, he crashed your car? Bummer.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You would seem to be changing your definition. First it's not a relationship unless it's two way. Now it's not a relationship unless it's two way, or at least you can remember it once being two way.
No. You have a relationship with your wife with an history of interaction. If she were to be asleep or in a coma (God forbid): the history of interaction is not negated by her altered state. Nor even by death. Because the interactive history exists. With God, there isn't an interactive history.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
There is an inter-active history for some people, though.....
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Jesus said that such people are blessed.
Well, that's ok then. Kind of like how having someone say 'sorry' after crashing their car into yours fixes up all the dents and the broken glass and so on.
I don't understand this comment, please explain.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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