IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Most interesting. Thank you for sharing this with me. I feel like I know you a lot better now.
The way it was explained to me is that Vatican 2 affirmed the "primacy of conscience," meaning that even if the church teaches X, if your conscience demands Y, you must as a good catholic obey your conscience. Of course this is also coupled with the idea that one is required to "inform their conscience." Have I done justice to this teaching?
Of course, there are those Catholics who say that "informing your conscience" means learning and simply accepting church teaching.
I'm glad to hear that.
Yes, you are doing a wonderful job.I'm glad you're asking really good questions, and I just hope I'm doing OK at least with some answers, my friend.
You are one of the people I most enjoy chatting with, largely because I find your posts to be very clear and rational. Sometimes we knock heads, but that's just par for the course.
I have never read any of his writings. Mostly I have learned ABOUT him as part of learning Jewish history. Here is what very little I know:
He was a pantheist. That doesn't gel very well with Judaism's traditional understanding that the Creator is no more part of creation than a painter is in his painting. There is some flexibility. I'm not well versed in Kabbalah at all, but I have the impression that they are panentheists. But to go full on pantheism? I'm sure a LOT of Jews were uncomfortable with this. I know I have problems with it, but I am also the first to admit that we really don't understand God, so I could be completely wrong.
There are many, many other things I associate with him that fit well with my own thinking, especially as my life has progressed and my views have changed. Specifically, I appreciate his teaching that the Bible is a human work and needs to be interpreted with that in light, that freedom of thought is precious, accepting a deterministic universe (a new belief for me), and his criticism of organized religion as fostering superstitious thought.
I'm a lot iffy-er on his rejection of Jewish law. I would agree that keeping the ceremonial laws does not have some kind of cosmic benefit. But these kinds of traditions are a large part of what holds a People together. I think if all Jews gave up observance of the Law, we would vanish as an ethnicity.
I find it very interesting that even during his life, many Jewish communities did not recognize the cherem against him, and that as time has gone on, he has been sort of resurrected as being a major contributor to Jewish thought.
