Too Easy..

[SoulTYPE]

http://www.spiritualhumanism.org/

How can they make it that easy? What's next? A free sermon lesson in cereal boxes?

 

[lilithu]

http://www.spiritualhumanism.org/

How can they make it that easy? What's next? A free sermon lesson in cereal boxes?

I have two of those. I framed them and put them up with my legitmate degrees, along with a certificate that says that I climbed the Great Wall of China.

Equal reverence and irreverence for the pompous and the silly.

 

[michel]

What would you prefer Soul........ a sermon or a plastic Mickey Mouse?

Hang on; dont bother to reply; I've already guessed your answer

 

[michel]

http://www.spiritualhumanism.org/

How can they make it that easy? What's next? A free sermon lesson in cereal boxes?

You could ask for a degree in parapsychology at the same time; sort of a bundled offer pack

 

[lilithu]

You could ask for a degree in parapsychology at the same time; sort of a bundled offer pack

One of my "degrees" says "The High Priestess of Cheese." They don't care what you want to call yourself, as long as you give them their money.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I have a bumper sticker that "proudly" proclaims "I climbed Mt Dora".

 

[Sunstone]

*MOD EDIT*

Moving thread to off topic

 

[Bastet]

Lady_lazarus' hubby got himself ordained there a few months ago lol.

 

[Master Vigil]

I am not even sure its legal like the Universal Life Church. People of alternate faiths like paganism or shamanism use those ordinations to be able to perform weddings legally. Most people who get them seriously, use them seriously. But if they do it just as a joke, will probably never use it at all.

 

[No*s]

http://www.spiritualhumanism.org/

How can they make it that easy? What's next? A free sermon lesson in cereal boxes?

I have no idea. I don't give it much credit, though. Spirituality is a difficult thing...a quick fix on the web just strikes me as...disrespectful to those who put much work into their faith (and I don't limit this to mine either). The ancient rituals and practices have meanings behind them, and they shoudl rightly be attained with difficulty. Eliminating them is better than just defining them away as just externals .

 

[Master Vigil]

The purpose of that site though is to get rid of the ancient rituals. It puts full responsiblility is humanity. No divine inspiration needed, or wanted. That is why the site does what it does.

 

[lilithu]

Spirituality is a difficult thing...a quick fix on the web just strikes me as...disrespectful to those who put much work into their faith....

I have great respect for those who put thought/work into their faith. But that has nothing to do with a piece of paper. There are ordained clergy who don't have much of a clue and there are laity who do. Just as I know that PhD doesn't necessarily mean greater knowledge or intelligence regarding a matter. It's not the piece of paper; it's the content of one's thoughts, actions, and character. So I think that my doctoral certificate and my online clergy certificates are equally funny.

 

[No*s]

I got the impression of something slightly different. Yes, it wants to get rid of the rituals, but it also says things like:

Most people need a religion to help guide them through life's challenges and difficult moral decisions. Recognizing how the power of religious rituals, methods, and communication can impact human behavior, Spiritual Humanism fuses traditional religious behaviors onto the foundation of scientific humanist inquiry.

We cannot abandon ancient traditions and practices but we can adapt them to our new understanding of the universe. Religion must be able to adapt to new knowledge about the universe without rejecting the deep spiritual connections to human history and the natural world that we are a part of.

In the FAQ, I found only a small number forbidden:

You are prohibited from performing ceremonies that involve exorcism, circumcision and animal sacrifice.

I think we're reading the same thing and interpreting it rather differently. I think its intent is to stop the old spiritual views, and to instill new ones, and in so doing, it will keep many of the old forms.

 

[Master Vigil]

I agree no's. Its intention is further foreward than its present state.

 

[No*s]

I have great respect for those who put thought/work into their faith. But that has nothing to do with a piece of paper. There are ordained clergy who don't have much of a clue and there are laity who do. Just as I know that PhD doesn't necessarily mean greater knowledge or intelligence regarding a matter. It's not the piece of paper; it's the content of one's thoughts, actions, and character. So I think that my doctoral certificate and my online clergy certificates are equally funny.

I feel somewhat differently, obviously .

Both of them may be useless if their teachers are, or if the student stops practicing their art. However, both spirituality and learning have long pedegrees and occur in communities. Spirituality isn't something that pops out of the blue. Lessons are passed from one generation to another, and they have a cumulative effect.

There are subtle nuances to spirituality, just like there are in every other human endeavor. I don't think I want to have a self-taught doctor operate on me. If I'm going to a doctor, and I ask for a piece of paper, he had better produce it. There's more to medicine than what we can read in books, and much of it we wouldn't learn through trial and error either.

The same applies to computers. Most of the people around me say "oooh, look at how good he is!" when I work on a computer. I'm self-taught, however, and when I run into someone with a degree in computer science, I have always met someone who knows far, far more than I. It didn't take long for us to go deeper than I can go.

Heck, this is even true of manual labor. I have quite a bit of family that do a lot of mechanics work. They invariably say the books are insufficient, and that a person strictly self-taught isn't as good as someone who learned from another person. The same thing applies to farming in my experience. I've seen very little that it doesn't apply to.

I don't see why spirtuality is different from any other discipline. There's only so much you can learn from books or by teaching yourself. You may be able to become smart by yourself, but I will trust someone who's been trained long before I trust the untrained, and this is true in almost any field. That recognition counts. If I go to a monk to learn to pray better, that monk was taught by his predecessor, and he by his, and so on and so forth. It's a long tradition. They've sifted through a lot of wheat and chaffe over the ages and passed down their wisdom.

This is, then, something I strongly disagree on. It's true recognition is only as good as the person who gave it and the student's continuation of the art, but it certainly plays a part just like in almost everything else.

 

[Pah]

I have two "divinity degree's" but I've lost the link to both of them

Bob

 

[lilithu]

It's true recognition is only as good as the person who gave it and the student's continuation of the art, but it certainly plays a part just like in almost everything else.

Sure. I am proud of my degrees because of the reputations of the schools that I attended and the hard work that I put into them. But (for me) the piece of paper is still just a piece of paper. If I were to lose them, it would not take anything away from me. Conversely, a "clergy certificate" from an online church does not confer anything to me (or anyone else) as far as I am concerned. No one is going to mistake it for Harvard Divinity. So it's just funny.

I am happy to agree to disagree on this and hope I haven't offended you with my irreverence. I just can't take any of this too seriously.

 

[No*s]

Sure. I am proud of my degrees because of the reputations of the schools that I attended and the hard work that I put into them. But (for me) the piece of paper is still just a piece of paper. If I were to lose them, it would not take anything away from me. Conversely, a "clergy certificate" from an online church does not confer anything to me (or anyone else) as far as I am concerned. No one is going to mistake it for Harvard Divinity. So it's just funny.

I am happy to agree to disagree on this and hope I haven't offended you with my irreverence. I just can't take any of this too seriously.

No, you didn't offend me. I feel strongly on the issue, but I'm not offended by your comments. The site, OTOH, is another matter...treating ancient practices with such triviality (and I wouldn't care which religion it was). Jokes are one thing, but that is another . Of course, I will always think it is their right to do what they do.

So don't worry, I'm not offended by our dialogue .

 

[SoulTYPE]

But does this not require more "training?" Is there not more to it..?

 

[No*s]

Not the way I read it.