Some of the questions Eliza raised brought forth some very profound (at least for me) responses - particularly in regards to making the world a better place.
Of the five comments below - three were from people who started from a point of calling themselves Atheists and two starting from the point of calling themselves Christian. I say from the starting point because some of us seem to be less interested/concerned about our label than when we started.
What can we learn from this?
Do our labels really have any significance when it comes to making the world a better place - or do our labels sometimes get in the way of doing that?
“The hope that I can MTWABP by helping other people understand each other better - that gives it a point too which justifies me spending some time on it.”
“As came up yesterday, if the sole reason for getting together is common work on a MTWABP project, there’s probably no reason to bring belief differences into it.”
“If you don’t care who gets the official glory when your fellow humans get helped, you have a lot more freedom to choose how you want to MTWABP. I think that if the focus is truly on MTWABP and you have chosen an avenue that you are passionate about, then that would be the focus of conversation when the group gets together, rather than the spiritual orientation of the members of the group. At least I would hope the cause would be more important than any individual agendas.”
“When we work together to MTWABP it brings out the best of who all of us are - and when that happens we see that each/all of us are quite good.”
“I don’t think it’s about respecting each other so that the result is we don’t have to make any compromises. I think it is about MTWABP even in light of the fact that we have to manage the polarity of differences and make compromises.”
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Marty | 18 Comments »I have previously posted some of the things that I am involved with in Santa Barbara - and I have been asked to provide more detail relative to those programs/people. I have been somewhat reluctant to respond because in some ways I have not gotten very far - but I think/hope that I have planted a number of seeds - and it will delight me if even one grows strong and winds up making a difference in my community - let alone the world.
In case you choose not to read the below - the questions are:
What is happening at your local level?
What ideas do you have of ways that you and/or others could create respectful dialogue among local Atheists/Christians?
Three months ago my perception of Atheists, if I thought about them at all, was either from Madeline Murray or total ignorance - with a significant touch of prejudice that Atheists were probably not very moral, were out to stomp out Christianity and obviously weren’t as wise/smart as those of us that called ourselves Christian. I had never knowingly met an Atheist - let alone had a dialogue with them.
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Several people have expressed an interest in possibly getting together in small regional groups and take our virtual conversation to a real conversation and see where that might lead us.
I have exchanged e-mails with Jim/Lisa/Ir and found that they would be very pleased if small local groups emerged out of what has taken place in this blog. They made it clear that they (OTM) are not in a position to put this together - while at the same time they would very much like to see others of us gather together and get to know one another - and see where (if anywhere) each group might choose to go. They would be very pleased to get feedback from the groups, have that information posted on the blog and encourage us in any way that they can - within their limited resources.
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