Science and Religion - A Unitarian Universalist Perspective (priest, ritual)

[LittleNipper]

Originally Posted by (Q)

What came first PERFECTION or IMPERFECTION?

Neither, probability.

I didn't know you are a Unitarian...

[(Q)]

I didn't know you are a Unitarian...

I'm not.

[sisjadie]

I'm not unitarian either, but one could argue that we exist in this world exactly as we are, to not be perfect, but to be perfectly ourselves. These imperfections keep life interesting. So imperfections can be seen as perfections. The rest comes next, Most christians will say perfection came before imperfection. My aspect is there is no such thing as imperfection. No matter what the scenerio everything in its own existance exists as it should. Mistakes and things others say are "imperfect" are just abnormal to me.
But that's just my point of view.
~J

[LittleNipper]

So was Jesus Christ prefect or imperfect?

[Jayhawker Soule]

If real, he killed defenseless fig trees and drove a bunch of pigs to suicide. His various temper tantrums with the Pharisees were unpardonable (and likely fake). Furthermore, if you accept the Infacy Gospels, he was a seriously obnoxious and delinquent kid. I certainly wouldn't want him around my grandkids. "Imperfect" doesn't begin to describe him.

[LittleNipper]

You ar either joking or deluded. I do hope it is the former. The fig tree existed for GOD's glory. GOD doesn't exist for ANY fig tree. The Pharisees were guilting of making the common people slaves to upholding THEIR INTERPRETATION of the LAW. Jesus saw their hearts. Their thinking was---I'm Jewish, I keep the LAW, I sacrifice, therefore I'm worthy.

[Runt]

***MOD POST***

Let's get back on topic please. Perfection is an interesting topic, but has little to nothing to do with this thread. If anyone wants to continue discussing perfection, please create another thread in which to do so.

[LittleNipper]

Originally Posted by Runt

***MOD POST***

Let's get back on topic please. Perfection is an interesting topic, but has little to nothing to do with this thread. If anyone wants to continue discussing perfection, please create another thread in which to do so.

I believe you've killed another interesting discussion. Too bad... Perhaps you are being too ridged and expecting too much from mere mortals.

[Kaonashi]

Science and religion are compatible because Science is a search for knowledge and Religion is a search for a way for men to connect with God. It's kind of amazing how far we have come since the Bible was written. We have discovered many things such as how to fight and cure diseases that were once fatal. We have walked on the Moon and discovered atoms and so much more. The question, "What is right and what is wrong?" is a genuinely difficult question that science certainly cannot answer. Given a moral premise or a priori moral belief, the important and rigorous discipline of secular moral philosophy can pursue scientific or logical modes of reasoning to point up hidden implications of such beliefs, and hidden inconsistencies between them. But the absolute moral premises themselves must come from elsewhere, presumably from unargued conviction. Or, it might be hoped, from religion - meaning some combination of authority, revelation, tradition, and scripture.

Unfortunately, the hope that religion might provide a bedrock, from which our otherwise sand-based morals can be derived, is a forlorn one. In practice, no civilized person uses Scripture as ultimate authority for moral reasoning. Instead, we pick and choose the nice bits of Scripture (like the Sermon on the Mount) and blithely ignore the nasty bits (like the obligation to stone adulteresses, execute apostates, and punish the grandchildren of offenders). The God of the Old Testament himself, with his pitilessly vengeful jealousy, his racism, sexism, and terrifying bloodlust, will not be adopted as a literal role model by anybody you or I would wish to know. Yes, of course it is unfair to judge the customs of an earlier era by the enlightened standards of our own. But that is precisely my point! Evidently, we have some alternative source of ultimate moral conviction that overrides Scripture when it suits us.

That alternative source seems to be some kind of liberal consensus of decency and natural justice that changes over historical time, frequently under the influence of secular reformists. Admittedly, that doesn't sound like bedrock. But in practice we, including the religious among us, give it higher priority than Scripture. In practice we more or less ignore Scripture, quoting it when it supports our liberal consensus, quietly forgetting it when it doesn't. And wherever that liberal consensus comes from, it is available to all of us, whether we are religious or not.

Similarly, great religious teachers like Jesus or Gautama Buddha may inspire us, by their good example, to adopt their personal moral convictions. But again we pick and choose among religious leaders, avoiding the bad examples of Jim Jones or Charles Manson, and we may choose good secular role models such as Jawaharlal Nehru or Nelson Mandela. Traditions too, however anciently followed, may be good or bad, and we use our secular judgment of decency and natural justice to decide which ones to follow, which to give up.

[Engyo]

Originally Posted by LittleNipper

What came first PERFECTION or IMPERFECTION?
Christians should know that answer, do Unitarians?

If you are interested in the Buddhist answer, it would be that neither came first. They are mutually interdependent, being two sides of the same coin so to speak. This becomes a rather nice analogy portraying the Buddhist concept of dependent co-arising (or dependent origination). This is proven by the fact that the two terms share a single conceptual definition; without the concept of perfection the definition of imperfection does not exist.