America's 4 Gods - Dec 10

The November meeting was quite enjoyable. The topic wasn't really clear to me, but was generally, what is our essential self and where does it come from? We talked about Nature vs Nuture, does our personality change over our lifetimes, how does our personality persist inside our ever changing bodies, and similar topics. With 14 adults attending, and 2 of them 1st timers, it was a good sized group.

We talked briefly about ZAMM, and how reading it is going among the attendees. Several were about half though it. It was mentioned that Upper Case Books has copies in Snohomish. I don't plan on picking up topics until January, so if you are planning to read it over the holidays, you still have plenty of time. I am reading a Kindle version this time.

I mentioned a recent review in the Times concerning America's 4 Gods. The review was fairly short, but the polls used by the authors seem to point pout a pattern of belief that resolves itself into four basic profiles for the concept of God. There are interesting descriptions and examples of how people conceive and interact with their personal God. As we have been dealing with this several times in the recent past I thought this might make for a good topic. I will try and post some facts and topics in this space prior to the meeint on Dec 10.

Please note the date. December is a tough month for meetings as there are lots of things happening. We will go early.

BQ Summary and Future Agenda

The meeting in September left me a little cold.  Let's leave it at that.

A small group met in October without a pre-arranged topic, and chose What is Friendship?  The discussion was lively and long lasting.  The group broke up at 10:30, which long time attendees will recognize as being long past normal.   With 7 people visiting and an overall group size of 10, I considered this to be about perfect.  That, and Gordon brought 2 half-gallons of ice cream to share for dessert!

We chose to re-read (for most of us) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pursig.  I am about half way through it again, just at the point where they are about to reach Bozeman, where he is talking about Phaedrus in the High Country of the Mind.  This is the part that most people find least interesting.  Classical and Romantic Thinking. Rational justification of ideas.  Locke.  Empiricism and Rationalism.  The futility of the scientific method.  Where do hypotheses come from?  Neitze and the logical positivists.  

This is brain bending stuff and not what I call intuitive at all.  I'm not sure what I can do with this when it comes time for the discussion, so if any of you have ideas I'd love to hear them.  Shortly Pursig shifts into the idea of the Good - What is Good, and all that.  I find that part quite interesting, and I know what to do with it.  Do we just ignore the preamble then, and concentrate on what we can grasp? 

November's gathering will be on the 12th.  It is early to make way for the things that will be happening later in the month.  No topic is planned - we will pick one at the time of the gathering.  ZAMM will not have been finished by many people by then, I don't think, so let's hold off until after the first of the year to make a topic out of it.

What is Happiness?

The topic for Sept 24 will be, What is Happiness? What makes you happy? Why does it make you happy? Are there things that make you more happy? Less happy? What are the degrees of happiness, and why would there be different levels? Is the "pursuit of happiness" a right we all share?

What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? Anger? Disappointment? Frustration? Apathy? Indifference? Is there an opposite?

Come and explore this interesting and seemingly common sense topic. I think you may find that there is more to Happiness than you might think!

Desmond

September 24 - Next Meeting

As the summer winds down and the "regular" schedule starts to fall into place, it is time to add back in into our schedules things like Big Questions. I have selected the evening of Friday, Sept. 24, as the kick-off night for the 2010-11 season.   My travel schedule remains faily full, but this is a night where I think things will work out.  I will be in Utah during the week, but I will probably have a topic in mind by the time I show up for the BQ session.  In the meantime, feel free to offer suggestions for quesitons in the comment area below.

Sessions are planned for the remainder of the year.  Currently the dates are:
October 15
November 12
December 10

Pot-luck dinner starts at 6:30, with discussions at 8:00.  We will wind up at 9:30 to 10:00.  There will be one big group.  If you need directions to the house, call the EUUF Office or send me an email.

Summer Break

The meeting on June 18 was a very good discussion, and I think people enjoyed themselves talking about God, god, or the Ultimate Force. We didn't have enough in the way of main course things for the pot luck, but that's what the Luck part is all about!

As for July and August, things at my house will be rather busy this summer. I have to call off the monthly meetings, I'm afraid. There is that much going on in my life, and the life of my family, that we will have to wait until September (do I hear a song in the background?).

Keep an eye on this spot for an announcement in August for the meeting in September, and if you have an idea for a topic, please let me know!

D

Next BQ - June 18

Pot luck dinner starts at 6:30 pm at the Smith house. Discussion starts at 8:00 and runs to about 10. Kids are welcome (if they can generally look after themselves - we have space for them). Call if you need directions. You know the number - or look it up in the directory!

Sadly, this blog is public, and I want this to stay just between us...

In a recent conversation with a good friend, the question of the existence of God came up. As a person with a stong belief in this area I welcomed the exchange, and suggested that the terrain of belief could be laid out like a line with three zones: to the right were the believers in God, to the left were the unbelievers, and in the middle were the fence-sitters. Diests, athiests, and agnostics, plain and simple, in my view. My friend disagreed, and now we were off into a proper philosophical discussion!

This probably would not have been a noteworthy discussion but for what appeared to be to me a strange assertion by my friend: he listed himself as an agnostic, but he believed in God. "That is a contradiction!", I claimed. "Not so," said he, because of the way he defined what God is, or what God might or should be. God as a father is not what he had in mind, and god as a natural force wasn't it either. Something else, he said, but what that something was, he didn't know.

"Well," says I, "a God that can't kick ass is not a God worth having!", in my usual disarming and charming way. But this gets me thinking, If the God of Acquinas, who is the God of Divine Providence, who directs everything in the world, who is all knowing, all powerful, and everywhere, is surely a God who could kick ass if he wanted to! But what of the God as clockmaker idea, where God sets the world into motion and then lets people have wills and choice, and we make of the world the mess that it is. It that a concept of God that makes sense in believing in? I'm not so sure.

So I decided to revisit the idea of God one more time, and lay out the question like this: What is God? Please come with some sort of definition in mind, where your idea of God can address things like limits of power, degrees of caring for mankind and you in particular, willingness to step in on your behalf to show his/her care for you, and so forth.

There are many sorts of Gods in the world, some more powerful and some less so. Panthiesm parcels out power to many. Monothiesm aggregates it into one. Vengful, angry Gods are to be avoided. Loving, mothering Gods look out for living things. Where does your God weigh in on the issues of the world and life, and especially, your life?