Lasto beth Lammen - Is your religion nuts?

[WampusCat]

Interesting. That's how I see religion: shining lights into the void and following what you find. Sometimes it's just the void. But other times...

[axordil]

That's really I think one of the things that I really admire about evangelical Christians. There was this constant soul scrutiny. I don’t really think that this is true in the leadership.

This pattern is pretty universal, actually. People who are in positions of power simply don't stop to examine their actions or thoughts, because they don't feel they have to. What's scary is you can generate this behavior in the lab within a very short time frame and absolutely meaningless role-playing approximations of power.

Our brains are not nice places.

ETA: you can get to the journal reference for the study in question through this blog.

[Frelga]

Confidence in one's decision making is the essential quality of a leader. Much more so in a religious leader who must be both capable in a secular sense and strong in his faith.

One of the reasons I am where I am is that the religious leaders are a) not organized into a hierarchy, b) hired by the congregation, and c) feel that "I don't know" is a perfectly good answer when it comes to discussing God.

I guess it's three reasons.

[axordil]

It's not just confidence in one's own decisions, it's the increased derision towards the mistakes of others, even when they're the exact same things you're doing and justifying. In other words, power makes you hypocritical by its very nature.

Conversely, the study showed that a lack of power made one more liable to second-guess one's actions, and to be hyper-critical of oneself.

[JewelSong]

The whole point of Christianity (to me, at least) is that we have been given an example to follow. We should try to be like Jesus, as it were.

Not the overly pious, holier-than-thou, platitude-spouting Jesus who seems to have invaded the collective consciousness, but the Teacher described in the original Gospels. The one who ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, who picked common fishermen for his followers, who made jokes about camels and eyes of needles, who blessed the children and who took the Pharisees to task for following the letter of the Law, but forgetting the Spirit.

This is how we enter the Kingdom of God. Not some far-away, mystical, ethereal Heaven but how we bring the Kingdom of God HERE. Right now. It's not the future but the present that should be our concern.

And whether you believe God is an actual entity or use "god" as a metaphor doesn't matter. Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. Visit the imprisoned. Love your neighbor. And get the big honking plank out of your own eye before worrying about the splinter in someone else's.

At least, that's my own personal theology.

[yovargas]

Not a bad one as things go.

[Maria]

Planks are fairly big, wide heavy boards and won't fit in eyes. A splinter in the eye merits a trip to the ER.

[JewelSong]

Planks are fairly big, wide heavy boards and won't fit in eyes. A splinter in the eye merits a trip to the ER.

It's a metaphor, Maria. Jesus said to get the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the tiny splinter in your neighbor's eye. In other words, deal with your own (probably significantly large) faults rather than judging the faults of others.

But I think you knew that.

[narya]

Jewel, I like your personal theology, even though in my case, I call it my (ideal) personal way of life.

[Frelga]

I think that's the place where many of us can and do meet. The nature of deities may be ineffable but we have a pretty good idea of what it takes to make this here world nicer.

[Maria]

Sure, I knew it was a metaphor. I was just saying it wasn't a very good one.

How about "don't worry about the gnat in your neighbor's eye, take care of the splinter of glass in your own!"

or, you know, something eye-sized. Great big boards used by pirates to excute prisoners does not make sense!

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Sure, I knew it was a metaphor. I was just saying it wasn't a very good one.

How about "don't worry about the gnat in your neighbor's eye, take care of the splinter of glass in your own!"

or, you know, something eye-sized. Great big boards used by pirates to excute prisoners does not make sense!

I think the comparison between motes and beams goes slightly further than simply commenting on equivalent failings, and actually points towards the practice of finding trivial faults in others whilst being oblivious of major faults in oneself. Hence the need for objects of distinctly contrasted dimensions.

[JewelSong]

Well, Maria, next time I talk to Jesus, I will inform him that his symbolic joke about planks and splinters did not meet with your approval.

[WampusCat]

I'd call it a joke more than a metaphor. Deliberate exaggeration to make the point funny and memorable.

[yovargas]

The mental image of people walking around with planks in their eye did always make me chuckle.

[vison]

It could also be a mistranslation, you know.

(Ooops. I popped in . . .)

[River]

The translation I knew was "log", but the point is the same: get your problems sorted out first.

[Frelga]

I always thought about it less than something stuck in your eye, a metaphor for a flaw, than something right in front of your eyes, obscuring your view yet yet unnoticed by you. (Generic you, natch.) Like, to bring us back on topic, believing that dinosaurs coexisted with humans.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

The translation I knew was "log", but the point is the same: get your problems sorted out first.

As I stated, I think it may mean a little more than simply "sort your own problems out first". It alludes to the great corruption of those who set themselves up as judges, and is in keeping with the revolutionary teaching that (at least as far as the myth tells) brought Jesus notoriety and to the attention of his contemporary elders. (Myth here is used in its exact meaning, not necessarily meaning that the tales are false).

[Maria]

Plank, beam or log... any one of them is going to make a grizzly mess of an eye socket and everything attached to it if insertion is attempted. The imagery is alarming enough to distract me from the meaning of the metaphor every time I see it.