In defence of Christianity. Jeremy Paxman was on great form last week, reminding us that when it comes to being rude to prime ministers he has no peers.
Jeremy’s rudeness is, of course, magnificently bipartisan. However elegant the sneer he displayed when asking David Cameron about Stephen Green, it was as nothing compared to the pointed disdain with which he once asked Tony Blair about his faith. Was it true, Jeremy inquired, that he had prayed together with his fellow Christian George W. Bush? The question was asked in a tone of Old Malvernian hauteur which implied that spending time in religious contemplation was clearly deviant behaviour of the most disgusting kind.
Praying? Well, the kind of people who built our civilisation, founded our democracies, developed our modern ideas of rights and justice, ended slavery, established universal education and who are, even as I write, in the forefront of the fight against poverty, prejudice and ignorance. And that’s just for starters. How has it come to this? BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages. Comparison Chart: Catholic vs. Protestant Theology. The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism. Gnosis Archive | Library | Bookstore | Index | Web Lectures | Ecclesia Gnostica | Gnostic Society GNOSTICISM IS THE TEACHING based on Gnosis, the knowledge of transcendence arrived at by way of interior, intuitive means.
Although Gnosticism thus rests on personal religious experience, it is a mistake to assume all such experience results in Gnostic recognitions. It is nearer the truth to say that Gnosticism expresses a specific religious experience, an experience that does not lend itself to the language of theology or philosophy, but which is instead closely affinitized to, and expresses itself through, the medium of myth.
Indeed, one finds that most Gnostic scriptures take the forms of myths. The term “myth” should not here be taken to mean “stories that are not true”, but rather, that the truths embodied in these myths are of a different order from the dogmas of theology or the statements of philosophy. The Cosmos All religious traditions acknowledge that the world is imperfect. Deity. There's More to Life Than Being Happy. Shutterstock "It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
" In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, most of his family, including his pregnant wife, had perished -- but he, prisoner number 119104, had lived. In his bestselling 1946 book, Man's Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning, an insight he came to early in life. When he was a high school student, one of his science teachers declared to the class, "Life is nothing more than a combustion process, a process of oxidation.
" As he saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most horrendous circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not. Seven Paths to a Meaningful Life, by Philip Zimbardo. Seven Paths to a Meaningful Life The following is adapted from a commencement address Philip G.
Zimbardo delivered at the University of Puget Sound earlier this month. Dr. Zimbardo, a giant in the field of social psychology, is now a professor at Palo Alto University, a professor emeritus at Stanford University, and the president of the Heroic Imagination Project. In the text of his talk below, we have embedded links to research supporting his advice to graduates. As I now complete my 55th year of teaching psychology, I am ever more grateful for the unique opportunity we teachers each have to learn from and share in the youthful exuberance of our students.
Teachers who inspire their students are everyday heroes, who should be more treasured by our society, as should parents and guardians like you here today who have sacrificed much for the well-being and success of your longtime students. I wish for all of you graduates a happy life and one that contributes to the collective good. 1. 2. Authentic Happiness.