02.02.09
Posted in articles at 7:44 pm by MPJ
I have just been reading Gordon Allport’s The Individual and His Religion. I had this book once before - it was required reading for a college course way back in the seventies - and here I have had to buy it again! I dont’ know how much of it I understood way back then but I sure got a lot out of it this time!
Just over half-way through there is a chapter entitled The Nature of Doubt in which Allport makes some very important points - especially as they relate to the belief stages. Allport speaks of what he calls “verbal realism” as a stage when a child, for example, fails to realize that there is a difference between words and facts - that the two are not identical. Thus he believes just about everything he hears - especially if it comes from a seemingly credible source. This kind of primitive credulity exists when either the experience of the listener is limited or when the “prestige of the speaker arouses almost hypnotic deference.” (p. 114) This form of belief implies a sort of relinquishing of responsibility on the part of the believer to the speaker. The believer just accepts what the supposed leader says and fails to think it through for himself. This form of belief can also be roughtly equated to the “Faithful” stage (Stage 2) of religious development. And this I am afraid is the type of belief many of the organized religions are trying to promote.
With greater experience or greater awareness, the person begins to detect holes in the reality that was presented to him on faith alone and he starts to test the truths he has been handed against the reality of his own experience. Thus, when “pennies have not fallen from heaven in response to a self-centered prayer, or when miracles are denied at a time when they would prove convenient“ (p. 115) doubt arises. This doubting relates to our “Rational” Stage (or Stage 3) It is a more mature stance than the “verbal realism” stage mentioned above where everything a religious authority says is just accepted “on faith.” That is to say - even if the doubt involves rejection of religion, it is STILL a more mature stage than one in which responsibility for faith decisions is handed simply to a religious authority without personal investigation or consideration of some sort. Quoting from the book: “Unless the individual doubts he cannot use his full intelligence, and unless he uses his full intelligence he cannot develop a mature sentiment.” (p. 116) There you have it! Yet another proponent of this pattern - belief, doubt or questioning, then a more mature type of faith.
So that makes about the thirteenth example (that I have found so far!) of religious specialists over various centuries who have said that blind acceptance of religion from the hands of a religious leader is NOT the most mature type of faith. Why then is this the type of faith so many of the traditional churches seem to be promoting?? Why don’t they want to encourage spiritual maturity in their congregations? Could it be that their preachers and such have not studied theology in an open, investigative manner? Could it be that the clergy need to encourage spiritual immaturity among their people in order to assure themselves of a job?
With these words Allport begins to hint at the ”Mystic” level (or Stage Four) of faith: “A faith centered in self-interest is bound to break up. To endure at all it must envisage a universe that extends beyond the personal whim and is anchored in values that transcend the immediate interest of the individual as interpreted by himself.” (p. 120) Does this not sound like the expanding, widening circle of compassion of the Mystic? But Allport is awfully vague about there being any such thing as the Mystic level. He writes as though he assumes everyone but the child IS AT the Mystic level: “Conceivably the parent and the church school might do a better job…in assisting the child over the successive collisions of belief and experience, and in helping him identify religion with a positve attitude toward life rather than with immature images and interests.” (p. 115) DO YA’ THINK?
In the long run, IF the churches did a better job in handling doubt, if not promoting it, they could perhaps avoid all those apostates in the stories on my blog of people who moved away from their church. If the Rationals knew there was a way to support their own investigations and accept their own doubts without throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater by separating themselves from religion altogether, much of the strife surrounding religion could be avoided as well.
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12.09.08
Posted in articles at 1:15 pm by MPJ
I am subscribed to World Wide Religious News - http://wwrn.org/index.php (It’s free!) and not long ago an article appeared questioning whether Obama is a Christian: http://wwrn.org/article.php?idd=29620. The discussion exemplified the usual confusion between what we are calling on this site the “Faithful” level of religion and the “Mystic” level.
An interview Barack gave to the Chicago Sun Times in 2004 was recently posted Read the rest of this entry »
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11.12.08
Posted in articles at 6:27 pm by MPJ
This apparently is the wording for an ad that is due to show on the side of buses in Washington, DC next week: ”Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake“ The ads are sponsored by the American Humanist Association and seemingly are timed to counteract some of the Christian frenzy about keeping Christ in Christmas. Just a few weeks ago a similar slogan appeared on buses in London: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” This one was paid for by the British Humanist Association.
The interesting part about this for the purposes of this blog Read the rest of this entry »
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11.06.08
Posted in articles at 12:17 am by MPJ
Now that the election is over I can say it without anyone accusing me of trying to influence the election! About a year ago, while reading “the Audacity of Hope,” I got the notion that Barack Obama may be at the Mystic level of spiritual development - that is at the fourth of four stages we have enough data to address.* That of course was not reason enough to vote for him as president and I really did not think too much about it after that. It was only today, while I was recalling some aspects of some of his speeches, that it hit me: I am pretty sure: Read the rest of this entry »
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10.22.08
Posted in articles at 4:22 pm by MPJ
Here is a news item about a pharmacy that just opening in my county where the plan is that they refuse to sell birth control, candy and sodas. http://wwrn.org/article.php?idd=29388 I don’t know, but do pharmacies sell cigarettes anymore? I wonder if this place will similarly refuse to sell those? Surely cigarettes are a larger vice than candy, soda and - dare I say it? - SEX! I have a brother who once owned probably the only convenience store in the world where there were no cigarettes for sale. That was his belief - that the use of cigarettes places an undue burden on society and thus is immoral. At tremendous cost to Read the rest of this entry »
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10.19.08
Posted in articles at 10:26 am by MPJ
I generally try to stay out of politics - a dirty business if I ever saw one! But just about the time I was writing my “Greater Good” article: ( http://beliefstagesandgrowth.com/blog/on-intercessory-prayer-reiki-and-the-greater-good/#more-139 ) a thought occurred to me: “What about the “Greater Good” in this upcoming election?”
It just seems this time there are less clear cut answers than in prior elections I can recall. People I have spoken with seem confused about which candidate would be better and many are still undecided. There are conflicting factors on either side, which, in my attempt to Read the rest of this entry »
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10.15.08
Posted in articles at 8:57 am by MPJ
Intercessory Prayer is when you pray to God that something you want will happen or that something you don’t want will not happen. In these cases, you are asking God to “intercede” on your behalf. It has been a part of most religions for ages and ages. But, does it work?
Well, a few years ago a study ( Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. Am Heart J.2006 Apr;151(4):934-42) was completed by a group of researchers (Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Lam P, Bethea CF, Carpenter W, Levitsky S, Hill PC, Clem DW JR, Jain MK, Drumel D, Kopecky SL, Mueller PS, Marek D, Rollins S, Hibberd PL.) The study tested the effect of prayer on the rate of complications following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
Three groups of patients were included in the study: those who were told they would definitely receive intercessory prayer Read the rest of this entry »
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10.13.08
Posted in articles at 10:05 pm by MPJ
Sorry I have not posted any articles here in a few weeks. Excuses include the fact that at first I was working mostly on my upcoming book. Then I could not access the blog for a few days while I was having it upgraded to a newer Wordpress version. Then my husband returned from spending a year in Alaska. Shortly thereafter, I had Read the rest of this entry »
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09.09.08
Posted in articles at 10:22 pm by MPJ
My Amazon order arrived this afternoon and I settled right in and spent the evening reading “The Way We’ll Be” by pollster John Zogby. I always like reading works that lend a bird’s eye perspective about our culture that you cannot get through the piecemeal details in the news.
In short, Zogby’s view is a very hopeful one. I only hope he is right. He claims the American public in general is turning Read the rest of this entry »
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