Christianity, interfaith, & Scientific Frameworks of Prayer?

JB: I was not trying to present a case for any particular religion, be it liberal Christianity or any other specific theology (Buddhism, Sufi Islam, etc.) that I might like without necessarily identifying with it. A panentheistic faith …See More ***

Me: The framework has important intellectual breadth, I grant you, as secularism itself has made possible with such Enlightenment accomplishments as the "Freedom of Religion" and later formulations of Civil, Human, and Sustainability rights. However, the Muslims have given a very concrete angle demonstrating my point in part. Forty plus Muslim countries have refused to acknowledge the UN Universal Dec of Human Rights because it has unacceptable Christian features. They have instead developed the 1990 Cairo Dec of Islamic HR based on Sharia Law. It privileges Muslims and men, for example. Historically and Sociologically, for starters, your framework isn´t merely "scientific" and disconnected from Christianity. That´s an artificially constructed assumption that reflects the anti-Christian atmosphere of the corporate-funded Religious Right most strongly, but also Scientism ideology that "Science is the Absolute path to truth." Well, it can be if done completely, which means interrelating all applicable component features. Sustainability provides a second concrete context. Corporate profiteers manipulating the secular and religious right wing have negated the emergency that is the conclusion in sustainability reports like the IPCC and 2005 World Bank and UNEP Eco Assessment. Science is a form of Philosophy controlled at large by profiteers, who have supported those who bend Jesus out of shape. Good scientists of the IPCC are handcuffed by Science´s pretenses, meanwhile. Failing to acknowledge Jesus´ psychosocial and cultural legacy in Scientific Philosophy means Science doesn´t have to help the poor and victimized. And that means anybody the corporate profiteers can victimize and hold hostage with their ideological arguments using Science their way: "it´s lousy jobs or the environment!" Jesus legacy is the mohastic schools that became the modern Universities, where Christian scholars took Aristotelian and Archimedic Philosophy and used such principles as "God´s omnipotence and Freedom" to overcome Greek limiting assumptions. As unsustainability shows, the key elements of Jesus´very unique, specific, and highest integrity with its real legacy, "Love thy neighbor as thyself, until thy enemy" needs to be reclaimed urgently. Like Gandhi showed, nobody needs to abandon their religion, but they do need to address Jesus´ authentic point about the poor and victimized in the face of profiteering lying, cheating, and manipulating of "Science" and its idolatrized reputation, and Jesus as a white, nationalist profiteer ***

Everything one wants to say cannot be fit into a two-page article. I need to send you the detailed outline that I had prepared for my three-session UU Youth Group course titled “The Moral Teaching of Jesus of Nazareth” which was based on the Jefferson Bible. I think that is only available as a PDF file on my tower computer and my laptop and not anywhere on my iPhone and so I will send it when I log back into one of those systems. ***

You use the term "Everything one wants to say," but the truth is that your perspective does not assert Jesus´ importance, nor that of other great spiritual teachers, like mine does. If you think that you do, then it is you who doesn´t see how to do that. Having been an academic high achiever, I studied the very foundations of semantics in college so I can´t let anyone think that all individuals have the same level of insight as everybody else. They don´t. For example, treating Jesus as merely a moral teacher is a merely philosophical view of Jefferson´s that itself is presumptuous. It ultimately ignored the reality of religious experience and much of its meaning. It´s a good start in beginning to approach the significance of Jesus, but to state that "moral teacher" is a fully adequate treatment is a rationalist approach. It is untenable in light of an interdisciplinary analysis. Even Jefferson had access to the history of the Saints, or knowledge of their historical existence, and George Fox and the Quaker Friends, who exemplify high integrity progressive Christianity and the role of religious experience. He relied on the rationalist Unitarian J Priestley, however. Again, which is fine if it their limiting assumptions are made clear. That´s ultimately an issue of clarity and authenticity facing you. *** ***

Me: You use the term "Everything one wants to say," but the truth is that your perspective does not assert Jesus´ importance, nor that of other great spiritual teachers, like mine does. If you think that you do, then it is you who doesn´t see how to do that. Having been an academic high achiever, I studied the very foundations of semantics in college so I can´t let anyone think that all individuals have the same level of insight as everybody else. They don´t. For example, treating Jesus as merely a moral teacher is a merely philosophical view of Jefferson´s that itself is presumptuous. It ultimately ignored the reality of religious experience and much of its meaning. It´s a good start in beginning to approach the significance of Jesus, but to state that "moral teacher" is a fully adequate treatment is a rationalist approach. It is untenable in light of an interdisciplinary analysis. Even Jefferson had access to the history of the Saints, or knowledge of their historical existence, and George Fox and the Quaker Friends, who exemplify high integrity progressive Christianity and the role of religious experience. He relied on the rationalist Unitarian J Priestley, however. Again, which is fine if it their limiting assumptions are made clear. That´s ultimately an issue of clarity and authenticity facing you.

*** JB- I am also an academic high achiever. I was the valedictorian of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_College which is one of the most selective high schools in the world. I realize that you attended Harvard but I actually earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard. As you can see from my CV https://www.polymerexpert.biz/dr-bicerano, I am the author of a comprehensive 800-page textbook and dozens of scientific publications, as well as inventor in dozens of patents. We were having what appeared to be a collegial dialogue on religion when you turned it into a rat race about who is smarter by claiming that you are an academic high achiever with a higher level of insights. The scientific method is the only way to discover objective truths about the physical universe. We can exercise our intuitions to try to answer questions that extend beyond the capabilities of the scientific method. I am quite satisfied with the regard that I have for Jesus and the other great moral teachers of the past and think that my perspective is quite realistic. What is presumptuous as well as ridiculous is you telling me that you are an academic high achiever and therefore have better insights, apparently not realizing what my credentials are. Image may contain: 1 person, sitting and indoor ***

JB Fr. Dr. Richard W. Kropf is a respected liberal Roman Catholic priest and theologian in Michigan, interested in the interface between science and Christianity. I invited him three times to give sermons at my local UU church. We became good friends and spent a huge amount of time over the years discussing a broad range of topics related to our mutual interest. Our discussion was always collegial, with nobody claiming to be a higher academic achiever and to therefore have better insights. He wrote a wonderful brief book as a result of these discussions. He starts in the Acknowledgements by recognizing that this book owes its existence to the discussions we had. He then starts the book itself by posing the key question I had asked him, with only a small amount of paraphrasing. https://www.amazon.com/FOREVER-Evolution.../dp/B01F3U8LQQ *** And the extent of your formal educational level and statistical details of your professional papers means what when you blow up like a blowfish? My credentials, like Harvard grad and author, ecological activist Bill McKibben´s, have been used in ways that reflect my dedication to Psychology and Spiritual Development, Social Services, and Social and Environmental Justice Activism. Meanwhile, the keenness of my intellect in service to God through interfaith UU spiritual integrity and Jesus allows me insights that you can´t grasp, and attempt to ridicule or ignore in your pride. My points remain, and you have demonstrated amply the issue. I didn´t need to enter into details about my background to address a psychological and semantic issue, the one embedded in your reply suggesting that their is no identity difference and insight difference existing between you and me. That simple and powerful distinction and truth also relates to authenticity and spiritual wisdom in relation to God. You like "Rev Dr." Kropf? Great. Now, my Harvard Freshman History of Science class with IB Cohen included the rise of Sociology and Psychology, which you clearly have little appreciation for. Yet, while I am a kind of prophet referring to the urgency of sustainability and reclaiming Jesus as pluralistic, you go apesh*t because you think I can´t tell you anything? My Bio Anthro undergrad clearly links me to the bio-psycho-social and spiritual-theological nexus in ways you don´t grasp. You are codependent, Mr. "PhD in Physics." Try following Fritjof Capra the Physicist-cum-Systems Theorist, and Jack Kornfield the Buddhist Psychologist who did Peace Corp and became a monk. I went to Africa to teach (through Harvard´s Philips Brooks House), worked in Soc Svc with substance abusers, and volunteered with the homeless, for starters. You, meanwhile, get my very capable and rather revolutionary message about Jesus, Science, and a sustainable planet. Collegiality requires adequate interpersonal individuation (Jung). I´m not limited by Catholic doctrine like your Rev Dr friend, nor do I depend on a PhD in Physics in a world heading for worse ecosystem degradation all the time, and needing to learn that Science has been inappropriately idolatrized. It is in fact secularized Christian Philosophy, not God´s truth itself, and needs to be linked to spiritual practice and social responsibility, and that not so "coincidentally" means reclaiming the progressiveJesus. That is my view, clearly, and not yours, but your degrees and presumptions haven´t led you to simply acknowledge rudimentary disagreement or interpersonal differences