Jim's message for April 7, 2024 Courage to Doubt

[BetteTheRed]

I noticed you did not answer my question about how safe it is for anyone in your community to express doubt about the mental or physical fitness of Donald Trump.

Similarly, Berserk exhibits very negative behaviour when anyone doubts his attestations of miracle prayer healing. Apparently, doubt is really anathema to our friend.

 

[Luce NDs]

It is like one of the parts of Ego:

• Child
• AD Ulter IO'r
• Maturing (like fine Y's Qui)!

Then on the other hand some define Ego as awareness of the ide as identifying with one side or the ulterior! No mediums allowed ... it us or them!
So it goes, dear departed ... folly? Perhaps ... we just don't know ... can something grow intuit? Imagine that construct ... let the games begin ... capitalist orders ... then varied disorders ... OCD, Borderline and PTSD ... can you associate?

 

[Mystic]

My message had nothing to do with the reported response he had to Thomas. You can separate your focus on scripture from the reality of life in human cultures. The reality is that expressing doubt about cultural norms takes either courage or foolishness.

Your responses continually duck Jesus' praise of faith and rebuke of doubt and his brother's teaching that a life characterized by a blend of faith and doubt must not "expect to receive anything from God." The widespread UCCan rejection of an interventionist God is a major reason why the UCCan church is in such steep decline. Despite the many miracles I have experienced and witnessed, I have endured a lifelong battle with doubt. I feel neither noble nor courageous in expressing these doubts and wish I could live up to Jesus' and James' insistence that we learn to conquer our doubts.

I noticed you did not answer my question about how safe it is for anyone in your community to express doubt about the mental or physical fitness of Donald Trump.

Totally safe! You keep ducking our concerns about Biden's greater senile incompetence as a gaff machine, his devastating neglect of our border crisis, and his complicity in the murder of countless unborn women!

 

[Luce NDs]

Polarization develops well so the great power can place the things that separate out as heavies ... and lighter sole ... tread cautiously! Note the floaters ... fey or something ultimate? Like the great mother theory ... the patriarchy was cranked out of existence ... hu*mae? Woe to those going the wrong way ...

Hoo'd that? We don't know just now ...

 

[Delightful Life]

Personally I consider doubt to be part of faith. There's an Indigenous story which we could paraphrase here.

Which one do we feed? Our faith or our doubt?

ty for the brand new thought
wow

 

[Luce NDs]

Thus the quest is on and hard to shed unless you deny the shacking ... curious event given the time spent on denying that sects form ... from vaporous sources ... hot smoking Peres? When hanging in the bush they are called pears to protect the innocents ... the appl' ettes of the Ayers ... Yah folk ... then the Yin to repeat ... generating ahm'n, ohm'n and screaming hummers ... A' m'n? Ci Finit ... Urse?

 

[Mendalla]

Since this conversation has turned to doubt and faith, which is prime UU territory, here's the classic (IMHO) UU reading on the subject. I copied this from my blog on the archive of the old Wondercafe, where I posted it for easy linking since I was citing it so often. It is by Robert T. Weston and has been a reading in at least two UU service books, including the current hymn book Singing the Living Tradition.

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth.
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error,
for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.
Let no man fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.
He that would silence doubt is filled with fear;
the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands.
But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock.
He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge;
the work of his hands shall endure.
Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind;
doubt is the handmaiden of truth.

 

[Luce NDs]

Since this conversation has turned to doubt and faith, which is prime UU territory, here's the classic (IMHO) UU reading on the subject. I copied this from my blog on the archive of the old Wondercafe, where I posted it for easy linking since I was citing it so often. It is by Robert T. Weston and has been a reading in at least two UU service books, including the current hymn book Singing the Living Tradition.

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth.
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error,
for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.
Let no man fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.
He that would silence doubt is filled with fear;
the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands.
But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock.
He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge;
the work of his hands shall endure.
Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind;
doubt is the handmaiden of truth.

Thus the quest begins ... well sometime ... but some haven't got there yet! Dewed fear of science of observation? Not sufficiently whetted ...

All going to prove how little we knows in virtue of vacancy on some matter and some that's yet dark and mysterious ... gnawing as Gnostix ... torch eh?

Swallow nothing that's in fire, or suffering rhetoric ... it is like kerygma ... Karries greens ... kohl on the moss ide, muse 'n while resting ... Muss ad? Intelligence factor ... dark like CIA!