Start the thread when you're ready.

Greetings all!

I just got back from a relaxing holiday and a visit to the St. John River area of New Brunswick, 1300 Km north east of Toronto.

Awhile back, I was asked to define "progressive". Accepting that I may have missed a lot since I was away, as one who believes in thinking for oneself, here I repeat the answer I, and others, then gave:
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By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we:

1. center our faith on values that affirm the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life, the inherent and equal worth of all persons, and the supremacy of love expressed actively in our lives as compassion and social justice

2. engage in a search that has roots in our Christian heritage and traditions

3. embrace the freedom and responsibility to examine traditionally held Christian practices and beliefs, acknowledging the human construction of religion, and in the light of conscience and contemporary learning, adjust our views and practices accordingly

4. draw from diverse sources of wisdom, regarding all as fallible human expressions open to our evaluation of their potential contribution to our individual and communal lives

5. find more meaning in the search for understanding than in the arrival at certainty, in the questions than the answers

6. encourage inclusive, non-discriminatory, non-hierarchical community where our common humanity is honoured in a trusting atmosphere of mutual respect and support

7. promote forms of individual and community celebration, study, and prayer which use understandable, inclusive, non-dogmatic, value-based language by which people of religious, skeptical, or secular backgrounds may be nurtured and challenged

8. commit to journeying together, our ongoing growth characterized by honesty, integrity, openness, respect, intellectual rigor, courage, creativity, and balance
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For more information check out the following site:
http://www.progressivechristianity.ca/
BTW, I presently, I am part of, and one of the founding members, of PATHWAYS
http://www.pathwayschurch.ca/
It is a new congregation of the United Church of Canada set up (January, 2006) to be specifically progressive.
Personally speaking, and because the word "Christiainity" carries with it so much baggage, I prefer to speak of Spirituanity. PATHWAYS, thus, is totally inclusive of all members of the human family not wanting to remain trapped in the womb of materialism. We have several members who call themselves "atheists".
Recently, thinking about what it means to be truly human, the following thought came to me: Human beings are animals with the power to think and choose what kind of animal we wish to be--gentle, helpful and progressive; or selfish, aggressive and vicious.

There are three 3 users on line, in this thread? Why do you remain silent? What are you afraid of?

And there are over 15 pages and 19,000 clicks. How come? What is so facinating?

maybe they are busy reading this 15 page thread which is practically a novel!

Lindsay, you know how I was talking about how sometimes we argue over things for years? this is one of those topics.

"This is one of those topics". True, and a cynical one it is.

SECULAR HUMANISM
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
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Here is what I suspect is true: I suspect that most of the posters to this forum are secular humanists--I will be glad to be proved wrong.

As I understand it, secular humanists believe that there is no kind of deity and that all life ends in death. Life came into being as the result of a cosmic accident and subject to physical and evolutionary processes. It has no eternal significance. Conscious human beings, along with all other forms of life, including insects, will, eventually, meet the same end: death.

Furthermore, secular humanists love to bash those who believe that life is eternal. Again I add: I would love to be proved wrong.

And let me add:
I accept that it is possible to be a moral and ethical secular humanist.

Because I am not happy with what most traditional theistic religions--God as a personal being, out or up there--have to offer, I would like to see the development of some kind of secular, human and non-dogmatic spirituality capable of imagining that, whether we like it or not, life is an eternal venture. Theistically, I prefer to agree with St. John: "God is love".

Me? I prefer to dialogue about such important matters, not just argue about them. Meanwhile, I would still like an answer to the question: Why do we find this subject so facinating?

Did you hear about the pilgrims who, on their journey, saw two signs? The first one read: THIS WAY TO HEAVEN!
The second one read: THIS WAY TO A DISCUSSION GROUP ABOUT HEAVEN!
The pilgrims loved the fellowship of discussing things so much that they went to the discussion group.

BTW, I kind of like what certain non-theists say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheism

For those who are serious students of religion, and who are really looking for a progressive way of doing this study, check out:
Religion/Theology, i.e., Philosophy/Pneumatology/Psychology/Somatology
Critique them Fairly. For example, not like Richard Dawkins

Code Button redirected me to this section to discuss “meme viruses� of Dr. Dawkins from
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showt...t=0&#entry81189 .

But as I see in this section Joesus, metaphorically speaking suffered Sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Actually I think that Meme is a good thing, please do not surprise. Certainly some side effects are present. But Meme helps operatively to teach great number of people to something on our planet. So it depends who uses Meme and how.

Good Memes help to boost planetary morals, procure education, refresh databases, neuro -stimulate habitants of our wonderful planet. Actually it is a good thing from the beginning of the times. The side effects you numbered come from Bad Memes.

But do not worry, gradually we will make our Matrix more stable. [I am joking]