Renovating or Reconstructuring in the United Church

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
The Madawaska Institute for Religion and Culture is located in Burnstown which is west of where I think the wild church is. The Madawaska River starts up in Algonquin Provincial Park and flows through a beautiful valley. Many parts of the river are lakes.

Thank you for asking. I found his obituary. He was amazing.

I started an Faith Outdoors page on my Facebook account in 2018 but kind of abandoned it when higher priorities intervened. The last I believe I posted on it was a canoe trip on the Milk River in Southern Alberta.
 
jimkenney12 said:
Thank you for asking. I found his obituary. He was amazing.
Click to expand...
He was. Rather appreciated his voice on WC (he was never very active here) speaking for process theology. He actually knew my grandfather and we had crossed paths at my grandfather's funeral (not knowingly of course, only realized it after we connected through WC many years later).
 
In my own little congregation, I try to do a few things to maybe make a difference. So far, our church is doing okay, attracting a few new members and losing a few also. I am afraid that if we did a big change, we would lose our faithful few.
 
jimkenney12 said:
What is process theology?
Click to expand...
Look at the thread on God Can't. The author, Tom Oord, is another process advocate. Basically, God evolves along with the universe and cannot control its destiny, but knows all the variables and can use that knowledge to try guide the universe using "lures" (Jesus would be a "lure"). So a God who is omniscient in the past and present but doesn't (because he can't) know the future and whose omnipotence is limited to influence, not actual intervention. Which is a self-imposed limit out of love for existence and need for that love to be for independent beings. That's pretty rough though. There's tons of nuance there. It was started by Alfred North Whitehead so dates back more than a century now with a number of subsequent philosophers and theologians exploring and expanding on his ideas. The hotbed is Claremont School of Theology in the US. It's fundamental problem is that it originated in philosophy and many advocates overcomplicate things and toss around jargon willy-nilly, making it hard to follow for lay people, but once you get it, it's a very interesting understanding of God and God's relationship to us (this is very much a relational view of God). George actually had some good analogies he used.
 
jimkenney12 said:
What is process theology?
Click to expand...
jim, grasp why people find process theology appealing. It stresses God's nearness. Relationality! COMPASSION IN SUFFERING'S MIDST!

Love's actually more comforting because God's unchanging. A sovereign God who already knows the end from the beginning can truly be trusted.

Christianity's beauty's that God enters our suffering in Christ without ever ceasing to be the eternal, all-powerful Lord
 
The author of A Brief History of Everything, Ken something or other, described the Spirit as spiritually evolving along with us. Is this an example of process theology?

It is a bit like humans developing AI as a tool for expanding our capacities except our experience with AI so far is its negative effect for many people on their mental capacities.
 
I consider it an ability to work with nothing ... the essence of mind that needs knowledge that it can pick out of the world of reality ... this is a difficult concept for those that are all God (and the sense of having lost rationality) finding themselves in a dark place as supporting the weight of knowing as overhead ... God is said to hate a vacancy ... and thus that filling sensation ... all in the abstract that is just beyond absolute in physical order!

Something will come of it in a magi of consumption of communication ... just listen up to the silence ...
 
jimkenney12 said:
The author of A Brief History of Everything, Ken something or other, described the Spirit as spiritually evolving along with us. Is this an example of process theology?

It is a bit like humans developing AI as a tool for expanding our capacities except our experience with AI so far is its negative effect for many people on their mental capacities.
Click to expand...

It sounds somewhat like it but it seems we should deal with it more naturally as AI is not understood whatsoever as too mechanical ... after all we were given the gift of conscience if we didn't trash it with excess desires ... like some brute leaders I won't repeat ...

The process is extremely complex as it passes through a unbelievable neural system ... with synaptic gaps ... arc points ...

I do not believe a single mortal can handle this and it needs significant gathering across time ... spooky? Thema's the essence ...

I do believe I rad that some time in the past ...
 
Last edited:
jimkenney12 said:
The author of A Brief History of Everything, Ken something or other, described the Spirit as spiritually evolving along with us. Is this an example of process theology?
Click to expand...
Sound like it or some form of open/relational theology (the broader class that includes process) was definitely an influence.

jimkenney12 said:
It is a bit like humans developing AI as a tool for expanding our capacities except our experience with AI so far is its negative effect for many people on their mental capacities.
Click to expand...
That's a problem with how it is used and sold, though, not with the fundamental technology. At work, we are going to create a new system that will vastly improve our ability to deliver care to patients and AI is crucial to that development process, reducing it from years to months. Kneecapping AI kneecaps our project.

By all means, go after the chatbots and other nonsense that are causing legitimate concerns. Watermark text and images generated by AI, put safety guardrails to keep AI from giving bad advice on physical and mental health, and so on. But don't assume all AI and AI use fall under that and try to throw the baby out with the bath water.

PS. Xenforo, who provide the software for this site, are using AI to track and manage their bug log and are probably using it to assist development. They have even provided the ability to document a site in a format suited to feeding to AI for developing add-ons and enhancements for that site. So when we get to version 2.4 (really, it will happen someday) and eventually 3.0, we will likely be using a program containing AI-generated code on this site. Not AI, I have no desire to actually have a bot on the site, but code created using AI (probably Claude).
 
I see the important helpful uses of AI and see it as an important tool. As your company is demonstrating, it is important to understand what kind of data management is needed and how to best apply that management. It needs sharp human minds with clear goalsépurposes in mind to design its applications.

One important application to me is identifying what data is missing from seeking soluritions to challenges, recognizing external factors that could affect outcomes.
 
jimkenney12 said:
I see the important helpful uses of AI and see it as an important tool. As your company is demonstrating, it is important to understand what kind of data management is needed and how to best apply that management. It needs sharp human minds with clear goalsépurposes in mind to design its applications.
Click to expand...
This. What AI does is enables my team to focus on business analysis, on determining what data is needed, how the data needs to be managed and handled, and how work needs to flow to create efficient, effective processes for operational staff. The coding is then done by the AI and tested against their documentation and test cases that they create.
 
When an individual takes part in such exchanges of varied nature, our very language alters to something that is off the track of some other expressions that may have erupted more from desire than with any significant knowledge of unknow nature to the populace. Here we run into dislikes and fears of the great unknown ... the shadow of God itself? The nature of this is mystical ...
 
Mendalla said:
This. What AI does is enables my team to focus on business analysis, on determining what data is needed, how the data needs to be managed and handled, and how work needs to flow to create efficient, effective processes for operational staff. The coding is then done by the AI and tested against their documentation and test cases that they create.
Click to expand...

If business becomes the primary over the complexity of souls involved will some be prepared to sell their soul for physical wealth?

Thus they lose connection with the vague nature of conscience ... and one can legitimately ask where does lost conscience go ... into the Dennisons?

Dennison is a very complex concept ... generates a fuzziness in mortal ranges ... providing completely opposing views as innate or extant ... when letting loose ... do it gently as in OZ ... virtue is brutal in some circumstances ... or so it feels!

I hope it passes as I travel on ... as in Game Theory ... all quantum ... and you can never tell when you'll fall from your carrier ... a hoary bush?

Remember such aged wisdom can come back as metaphor ... one must tune in to a lot ...
 
Luce NDs said:
If business becomes the primary over the complexity of souls involved will some be prepared to sell their soul for physical wealth?
Click to expand...
I work for a company whose values include things like "patient first". So I know you can build a business without selling your soul. You just need a solid set of values beyond just "make more money" and then evaluate your activities, and those of your employees, against those values. Yes, you might lose a percentage or two of margin in return for living those values but that's kind of the point of following your values. It means you're trying to accomplish more than just make a profit.
 
Mendalla said:
I work for a company whose values include things like "patient first". So I know you can build a business without selling your soul. You just need a solid set of values beyond just "make more money" and then evaluate your activities, and those of your employees, against those values. Yes, you might lose a percentage or two of margin in return for living those values but that's kind of the point of following your values. It means you're trying to accomplish more than just make a profit.
Click to expand...

That is so in cases ... my experiences have noted corruption within and good companies being bought down because of disposal of balance senses ... avarice kicking in ...

It seems to be the thing like a Russian General mentioned about the Moscow Mule ... where tyranny overrun social spirit? I saw this is several big companies including the one I worked for at the end ... a lot of excellent problem solvers were set aside for the glory of wealth ... diminished wisdom?

Dionysius enigma! Some duality was intended for the things of subtle nature to examine the abstract garden (soul, spirit, psyche as alien essence) an intangible of another dimension from physical matter? Plasma-like ... invisible fire?

Perhaps where Marx lost to a negative religion of power only without adequate reason? Death of Anna Karenina ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top