i have a few thoughts to add to this old thread. one thought has to do with the suggestion that intellectualism leads to faith/religion. i've never seen it that way. that's not to say that statement is wrong, but rather just the first time i've heard that. i've always posited that intellectualism leads to athiesm. the athiest might say....i don't need all that mystery and magic and make believe....give me the cold hard real facts of life and that will be fine for me....where as the believer might say....i can't expalin it all but i know it is real.
from my experience, faith and intellectualism are not implicative. faith is a movement of the heart where as intellectualism is a movement of the mind. they can go together, but it's not been my experience that one leads to another. nor has it been my experience that they are mutually exclusive. i've been able to find both faith and intellectual satisfaction. perhaps they are more of a venn diagram that overlap but do not contain on another. a second thought i have is regarding christianity beind dismissed for it's bizarre writings in the gospels and other texts. ie. i am the way, the truth, and the live....no one comes by the father except through the son. joni does the same thing in her song turbulent indigo. she says of vincent....i'm a burning hearth. what van gogh actually said was....there may be a great fire within our soul.... so joni grew that phrase to paint a picture with her words. i believe this is what we see in the texts of the bible, be they from the old or new testament. a painting with words where any one color or statement alone is not enough to project the entire image. my third thought is that we handled joseph-francis pretty roughly as a group. yes, he was provoking. at the same time, i think his world was turned upside down on him when he came here because of music he liked only to find out that there were others in the world who professed the same faith as him but believed nothing which he did. i think he was shocked and frightened by the freedom of thought he stumbled upon. my last thought is in answer to anne's question on what we believe about jesus. i beleive that a christian is christian when they act like one, not when they profess to be one. i believe this because of the story of the good samaritan who acted with compassion but believed nothing while the pharisee believed and followed the law but couldn't stop on the road to help a sick person. i guess i view jesus as a manifestation of a new understanding of faith...one that works from the inside out instead of the outside in. in my limited world, the totality of christianity is espoused in the beatitudes which can be found the the fifth chapter of matthew. blessed are the poor, the meek...etc. particularly...blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see god. each beatitude is two fold....blessed are the .....for they shall..... i take this as a reciprocal description of our relationship with god. if we seek god, then we will have our hearts cleaned. if our hearts are clean, then we are able to see god. in fact i believe so strongly in this that i rarely ask to see god in my daily life because i am aware of the great costs of heart cleaning that come with the consequences of such a request. yet each time i've asked, i've been answered...the stars of christendom are the poor, the meek, and the pure of heart. so to me, jesus is a medium in which i've come to better understand my role in life and my place in the community of others. jesus is also a living experience for me where i find all of life's better emotions like joy,peace,hope,and excitement. jesus is a burning hearth where i slough off my coat and sit. and jesus is the other person in my life who demands from me more than i have to offer which leads me to some of life's worse emotions which inevitably make me better. jesus is the one who takes me beyond myself and helps burn my heart clean. pat np. patti griffin - nobody's crying
