George's Essays

FAITH DEVELOPMENT

BELIEFS & VALUES, VERSUS EGO

The 4 stages of Faith development is taken from M. Scott Peck's insightful work on commmunity building: "THE DIFFERENT DRUM: COMMUNITY MAKING AND PEACE" It is discussed in chapter 9: Patterns of Transformation. I highly recommend the book. Is it possible for a stage three not to sound a little smug when talking with a stage one? The terms applied to the stages of faith development by Peck are: Chaotic, antisocial Formal, institutional Skeptic, individual Mystic, communal Peck also emphasises that when working together in the process of "community building", (Group Process carried to the level of a caring, loving "community" of people) understanding and appreciating each other's "place" or perspective on spirituality, (with respect to the 4 stages as well as other analysis) was very helpful. He also infers that it was not an easy task. In that process of community-building, I think it would be safe to assume that "empathy" is essential. Therefore, the tendency toward "one-up-man-ship" would have to be dealt with by each person and the emerging community, collectively. . George in Cody (2880&8) One of the things that is quite apparent about Western Culture and Western religious history, is that unless people have a mythos tied to their value and belief system, which supports their perceptions of reality, and challenges them as well as those outside of their faith, they will come up with a new one! . . Karen Armstrong makes that abundantly clear as she discusses the various movements within the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths over the past 5 centuries . . Do we get enthusiastic about UU because we can take our own spiritual journies? We can be logical and spiritual? We can study spirituality from many perspectives: all world religions and smaller religions, to develop our own individual sense of the holy? We can study and discuss scientific discovery and not fear that it will conflict with our sriritual choices because they are a synthesis of both mythos and logos and are therefore evolving, (process theology?). If one shows the other to be untrue we re-search, re-think, meditate, discuss and re-systhesize until we are satisfied.

A Yahoo Club Comment: . . Cutural anthropologists would definitely agree that belief systems do not have to be realistic or factual to be useful. From the belief systems, values of utility emerge for that social context. These in turn support the social "world view", "technologies" and "social institutions". It's pretty much that way in all cultures. . . The values and beliefs have the potential of serving the individual and the society. . . They serve the same purposes and one has little more factual credibility than the other. The books of the current "Bibles" in use were selected by the bishops of the early church for our "benefit". They left out some of the most valuable books (in the minds of many biblical scholars) probably because they couldn't be literalized sufficiently and were at variance with the majority of opinions. Not the kind of thing that keeps the average person, nor societies of the time, in line. Some thoughts to kick around: The cyber revolution holds hope, but it will take more than information to change prejudice, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, etc. We have to re-examine some of the values we hold dearest: self-reliance/immutability/complete freedom of the individual. We will have to become more "other-centered" in our efforts and less concerned about ourselves and our successes, before we can truly listen and care about what others suffer, say, do, and need. One of our most significant problems is that affiliations with religious groups is far too often centered on "belonging for our own security/self agrandizement" (country club) rather than spiritual enlightenment or other, higher purposes. We live in a society in which the need to demonstrate our immutability is far greater than any need for understanding or accepting others. Until and unless we can change that need, we will always have prejudice, hatred, proselytizing, intolerance, war, and religious bodies that can only thrive where somone is in "control" of the thinking and consequently the belief/value system,and the "faithful" like it that way. As Gaians & UU's, we are transitionalists: retaining some of the old problems yet trying to be open to others' ideas, beliefs/values, needs, purposes. Those who are heavily invested in absolute belief systems will have the hardest time accepting the validity of others' beliefs/values. That is why so much effort is placed on proselytizing in fundamentalism. The greater investment in the security/belief system, the greater the effort to "sell" that system as the only acceptable one. Mainline churches had missionaries trying to do the same thing. From this point of view, fundamentalism has existed as much because of the need to have an "absolute system" to invest in, as the need to be "right" about all things religious. Both contribute to the individuals' social immutability as well as to the collective ethno-centric and (& ego-centric?) chauvinistic point of view. Secularism has values and beliefs, but due to the conflict with the old values/beliefs, they never had an opportunity to develop and fully emerge much less become broadly accepted in much of society. What percent of society looks to cultural anthropology for a clearer view of religion? To geology for a clearer understanding of earth's long develomental history? Yet intellectuals in business/industry have used these sciences extensively to find and exploit resources for profit and to build corporate cultures that work more effectively and efficiently. It almost seems that unless there is profit [for the pocket or the ego], nothing changes much in society. I hope this doesn't sound to pessimistic. Much of what I'm saying here comes from Francis L.K. Hsu's works and perhaps it is getting too old!!?? George in Wyoming