TED Tuesday 5/22/07

Every Tuesday morning I present a TED talk to a group of friends, co-workers, clients and competitors. I call it TED Tuesday. I've been holding them, with few exceptions, every Tuesday for the last 18 months. This is an attempt to have a parallel experience here. Each week I'll post the video we watched (subject to availability from ted.com) and a few words from our discussion.

This week we watched Rev. Tom Honey who attempts to answer the question "How could God have allowed the tsunami?"

I think the statement Rev. Honey made that intrigued me the most is toward the end. He asks "Isn't it ironic that Christians who claim to believe in an infinite, unknowable being, then tie God down in closed systems and rigid doctrines?"

I think this statement is incredibly insightful and liberating. While he never says the word, Rev. Honey is describing aspects of Pantheism. As an atheist, I would welcome a religious view closer to Pantheism. It seems to me that saying God is in everything would result in much the same behavior as saying God doesn't exist. Both would foster a more thoughtful approach to life and our treatment of other living things.

I was also very impressed with the thoughtful and gentle way he delivered his talk. It set the tone for a great, measured and civil discussion between atheists and Christians.

See it here, join the conversation here if you like.

Thanks TED for making these available.

 

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csallquist
I believe Zues said it best... ""Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times
confed'rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes. All are alike involv'd in ill, and all must by the same relentless fury fall."

Thanks a lot Eve!


kick damage
A refreshingly open discussion about faith and the idea of a possible God. This kind of open thinking is what religion SHOULD be, constantly searching for answers to the really important questions in our complex universe, like why are we here, what is our purpose in life and how does the number 42 fit into the purchase of my new digital watch?

But seriously hats off to this man for daring to question his faith. I wish more people would question the things in which they believe a little more. Then maybe George Bush would never have been elected!
fifthculture
I agree, this is the kind of thinking that should dominate religious discussions – the quest for meaning in life, the universe and everything (beyond the number 42). In "Dogma" Kevin Smith wrote something along the lines that religion was always supposed to be an idea, but humans turned it into a belief. Once it became a belief, things started to get set in stone. That's the problem with belief, it's inflexible (a broad statement, I know...don't beat me up over it).
Nick Bickner
[this is good]

From a fallen-away-Catholic/nostalgic former believer:

In outlining the challenge he faces, the Rev. Honey says that a theist must account for horrendous events like the tsunami in Indonesia (which prompted the writing of his homily) and the Holocaust.

In the approach he settles on for himself and for his congregation, he says that God is “in this with us.”

Toward the end of his homily he says, if I am paraphrasing correctly, God is IN things; in the tsunami, in the victims…

He does not fully close the loop by saying “God is in the Holocaust.” I do not raise this point in an attempt to point out a flaw in his pantheist/monotheistic-animist position (pardon my failing vocabulary.) I would just like to hear how he would formulate the relation between God as he now sees him and this event which cannot be ignored by a thoughtful believer.

By the way, Namaste, the Yogic greeting (that which is God within me greets that which is God within you) with which he closes resonates nicely for me with a thought I have long cherished, from a vastly different tradition, because it helped me fill in the hole in my being where religion used to dwell. Martin Buber’s notion of I and Thou is a formulation for avoiding the objectification of the other (a sin which the Holocaust took to industrial levels) by granting everyone full personhood.

I’m going to try the Rev’s idea on for size, as it were, hoping it’s comfortable and long-wearing.

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