Byron Carrier – Page 18 – Earthly Religion

The Answer to Our Humanistic Prayers

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Humanists tend not to believe in prayer. Humanists believe in human ability and choice in a natural universe. Miracles are either impossible or explainable. Working material and social reality by merely thinking something fervently just doesn’t happen. Scientific evidence for the effect of prayer is scant. But personal experience of many is profound. Prayer may not be humanistic, but is human. Many humans in all sorts of cultures pray. They talk as with ancestors, saints, gods, or God. Healing is an act of both…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

I once got to meet The Blind Saint of Vrindivan, India. He was the guru of my guru, Dr. Vasavada. Dr. Vasavada, of Bombay, India, was fresh in Chicago from having been trained with Carl Jung as an analyst. I was at the University of Chicago in seminary and took to helping Dr. Vasavada get around town while learning about Jungian psychology and eastern religion from him. When the chance to meet his guru in India came up in the summer of 1972, I went. …

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

The eastern version of our western divine right of kings was the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. Let us consider its framework and apply it to our current king of sorts, King George. I do this, not in a partisan way, but towards loving our country, all humanity, and earth. The Chou, a somewhat crude but ambitious crew, defeated the Shang in 1115 B.C., beginning one of the longest dynasties in Chinese history (1115-221 B.C.) In order to convince their subject peoples, especially the nobles, of…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

What is the worth of matter and these bodies made from it? Some religionists say matter provides a mere stage on which we act the drama of our lives, creating the conditions of our afterlives. Some scientists say it and our world are just insignificant specks in the enormity of the universe. Are we lost in a false dilemma? Must we choose between irrelevant matter and senseless matter? We should reject both irrelevancy and senselessness. As I once wrote in a paper for the…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Drifting on the warm Pacific at the west shore of the big island of Hawaii I gazed through the clear view of my mask at all the many sorts of colorful fish amidst the canyons of coral. Sound, once below water, is a different world. Clicks and clacks can travel far and fast in water. The sound of my unusual form of breathing, my teeth gripping the rubbery snorkel, rushed into my ears, not masking the tremendous quiet of their realm – the fishes and…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

“The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.” Emerson They’re out to get you. Who or what? Circumstances. Whether they are malevolent or benevolent depends on what you look for. Just as a paranoid person sees and hears mean forces conspiring to trip him or her up by saying cruel things, so does a pronoic person tend to see friendly, celebratory forces out to make life a bounteous pleasure. Go through life with cracked eyeglass lens and you’ll see a fragmented, cutting world. Go…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

The issue I wish to address today involves the inevitable tensions that can grow between the good souls of a church or fellowship. My concern is twofold: how do we maintain and improve a dynamic, satisfying fellowship for all of us, and how do we model the dynamic mutuality possible in a pluralistic democracy? These issues go to the heart of our congregational and societal relations. I’m glad I don’t have any particular complaint or crisis in mind. This really has to do with…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

One of the good things about growing older is that you have ample time to adjust to growing older. When I look in the mirror, I see a face I’ve grown accustomed to. Unlike friends who haven’t seen me for three or four decades, I don’t have to have to suddenly see the older me. I’ve grown accustomed to my face My breathing out and breathing in I’ve grown accustomed to the way my hair won’t rightly lay It won’t lie down I will…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

At memorial services I sometimes refer to Psalm 90: For all our days pass away, our years come to an end, like a sigh. The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore; yet they are soon gone and we fly away… So teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom. Long though our lives might be, they will end. We will die, but will we have lived well? Will…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Robert Fulgum was delighted that a student brought an actual human brain to show and tell. The students got to hold the three pound organ in their hands. “I have one of those things between my ears,” he said, reminding them that not only does it serve to monitor and adjust all the functions of the body, from breathing to moods, it holds much more: [It] contains all the limericks I know, a recipe for how to cook a turkey, the remembered smell of…

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The dream of an Earthly Religion…

Earthly: our precious natural earth which allows us our bodies, lives, cultures and future.

Religion: from the old root words religare and religio, meaning “to bind back to the root and be whole again.” This does not assume we need to believe in God or the Bible. Rather, we should be well-related with our own bodies, each other, natural life, and natural existence as it actually is. If there is connection with divinity or God, it is in and through our bodies and beings that we relate primarily, not via scriptures, traditions, rituals, or supposed religious authorities. In short, by religion we mean “relating well with reality.”

The emphasis here is on the earthly. It is not an afterlife or an instead-of-life that interests us. Living well here on earth together does.

While we take our religious perspective and work seriously, we don’t want it to be stuffy. Too often, religions can be alien to the human condition rather than affirming of it. They can be demeaning and demoralizing, dull and bossy, ponderously pretentious. We lean more towards the fun and sexy, natural and lively, human and humane, thoughtful and pertinent.

Reality: the obvious and inescapable stuff of physical existence. We intend to enjoy and tend our lives in these bodies, for our time, in our cultures, for our singular and interrelated ecosystem. There may be more, but there is AT LEAST THIS of which we are born, in which we live, and into which we will die.

God or no-God is not the point; Earth is. Both believers and non-believers are welcome here, for we all share a common source, opportunity, and responsibility: life as it is and could be. This ranges from simply improving one’s own life to your helping save and restore Eden’s, not just to “sustain” it, but veering it to thrive as never before. If you value your life, each other’s, and Earth’s – welcome!

Learn more…

The Answer to Our Humanistic Prayers

A Saint’s Call

The Mandate of Heaven

The Heart of Matter

The Game of Life

Pronoia

From Passive Tolerance to Dynamic Mutuality

Maturity, Lately

A Heart of Wisdom

Have a Heart to Help your Head