Davidium
Active Member
I find that my subconscious often gives me some neat ideas while I am asleep... and this morning I woke with a neat idea....
I had the idea to write a "History of Heresy".... History told from the perspective of the religious rebels throughout time....
Part of my being a Unitarian Universalist and a Deist is that I veiw myself as a religoius heretic...
Each chapter could be about a different heretic, told in chronological order... Short biographies if you will. Maybe I can actually produce a book if I think of it as 25 short essays instead of one book!
So then, I was quickly considering who would be my heretics... Of course there would be Tom Paine, Michael Servetius, Arias, Marsilius of Padua, Martin Luther, William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson....
And then I had the thought of including heretics from other faith traditions... the person who wrote the buddhist Lotus Sutra, and an Islamic heretic or two.... and then the idea came to me to write about a few Jewish heretics....
Who would they be? One name popped into my mind.... Jesus of Nazareth.
From the Jewish perspective, Jesus can only be looked at as a Heretic. He was even killed for his heresy. In fact, he might even be the ultimate example of a heretic.
Paul codified the Heresy, made it into a separate faith... but Jesus himself was a religious radical, considered dangerous by the power structure.... Heresy.
Now, the next time a Christian calls me a Heretic, I will remind them what good company I am in.....
David
I had the idea to write a "History of Heresy".... History told from the perspective of the religious rebels throughout time....
Part of my being a Unitarian Universalist and a Deist is that I veiw myself as a religoius heretic...
Each chapter could be about a different heretic, told in chronological order... Short biographies if you will. Maybe I can actually produce a book if I think of it as 25 short essays instead of one book!
So then, I was quickly considering who would be my heretics... Of course there would be Tom Paine, Michael Servetius, Arias, Marsilius of Padua, Martin Luther, William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson....
And then I had the thought of including heretics from other faith traditions... the person who wrote the buddhist Lotus Sutra, and an Islamic heretic or two.... and then the idea came to me to write about a few Jewish heretics....
Who would they be? One name popped into my mind.... Jesus of Nazareth.
From the Jewish perspective, Jesus can only be looked at as a Heretic. He was even killed for his heresy. In fact, he might even be the ultimate example of a heretic.
Paul codified the Heresy, made it into a separate faith... but Jesus himself was a religious radical, considered dangerous by the power structure.... Heresy.
Now, the next time a Christian calls me a Heretic, I will remind them what good company I am in.....
David