Spiritual Awakening

[usfan]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations. But this ignores the very real & very significant impact of spiritual beliefs in society. It would be like future historians trying to explain the current terrorist actions without the driving belief system of Islam. You can't explain everything with a purely secular view, and it misses some important factors in our interactions.

I won't be going back too far. Any discussion about spiritual awakenings has to include the biggest one in human history: The Reformation. Some people view this as just political maneuvering. But they ignore the great volume of written works that provided the ideological basis for resisting the established religious institution. The Anabaptists, the Huguenots, & the concurrent protestant revival that swept through Europe unhinged the status quo, & threatened their power base. The establishment fought vigorously against it, killing, torturing, & undermining this spiritual awakening, for it not only upset the basis for their rule, but it went against their core beliefs. The divine right of kings, a professional priesthood, an aristocracy of privilege, & their right & duty to control the rest of humanity were all under attack by this awakening. So they fought it. They killed the apostates. They gave them 'second baptisms' by drowning them. They tortured them to deny this new found faith in late night inquisitions. They burned them openly at the stake, to deter any more departures from the status quo. But it did not work. Instead of nipping this new awareness in the bud, it spread like wildfire.

• The priesthood of believers, not a professional religious class.
• The authority of scriptures, not the ruling elite.
• The equality of man, not a divine order of elitism.

These were earth shaking revelations. It changed the course of history, & opened up the enlightenment era of reason, human freedom, & human equality. Philosophers began to question the authority structures, & called for them to be based on Natural Law, not mandates from a monarchy. The king was a mere man, & was not above the law.

About this same time, the new world was being settled with refugees & rejects from the European inquisitions. Quakers, Presbyterians, & Puritans moved en masse to start their religious utopias. They fled the intolerance & oppression of the European status quo, but at first, kept the intolerant part, demanding strict conformity to the tenets of their faith. Many religious colonies formed in the new world.

Massachusetts- Puritan separatists, with some English congregationalists.
Pennsylvania- Quaker, Mennonites, Moravians, Calvinists, Lutherans & more. A large segment from Germany came here.
New Amsterdam- Primarily a trading port, it become more diverse than some of the others. Jews, Lutherans, Scandinavian & Dutch fortune seekers mingled with the varied religious beliefs.
Virginia- Anglicans, loyal to the church of England were the bulk of the colonists there.
Maryland- In the irony of the reformation, English Catholics were no longer comfortable in protestant England, & many came to Maryland.
Rhode Island- The famous 'religious tolerance' colony, where outcasts from all the other colonies could come. It was not a large colony, but significant as a refuge for dissenters.

Almost all the colonies had some kind of religious basis.. they were formed as religious utopias, where the faithful could practice their beliefs without fear of persecution; all of them a direct result of the reformation. But after a few generations, the original religious fervor waxed cold, as it always does. Heartfelt piety gave way to ritual instruction, & the power of spiritual living waned. But by the mid 1700s, a significant movement began sweeping across protestant Europe, & it found its way to the new world. This was the first Great Awakening.

..more later..

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations. But this ignores the very real & very significant impact of spiritual beliefs in society. It would be like future historians trying to explain the current terrorist actions without the driving belief system of Islam. You can't explain everything with a purely secular view, and it misses some important factors in our interactions.

If "the driving belief system of Islam" is how you explain "current terrorist actions," one wonders why we should find you to be a credible source on the great flaws and great benefits of "a secular education".

(Nothing new here - literally: note that the OP comes from a 2015 post in another forum.)

 

[usfan]

If "the driving belief system of Islam" is how you explain "current terrorist actions," one wonders why we should find you to be a credible source on the great flaws and great benefits of "a secular education".

(Nothing new here - literally: note that the OP comes from a 2015 post in another forum.)

You don't see jihad as a 'driving force' behind islamic based terrorist acts?

And btw, the 'revival' in Islam of a more historical, fundamental interpretation of the Koran is a more accurate explanation of these events than secular motivations from atheistic Arabs..

 

[Polymath257]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations. But this ignores the very real & very significant impact of spiritual beliefs in society. .

Then you must be reading very different history books than I. The ones I read go into detail on the differences in dogma, the motivations of those involved, and how that plays out with the politics.

Did you really not see anything about the Reformation in any of your 'secular' history books? Or about the 'Great Awakening'?

If those history books were dealing with the appropriate time periods and *didn't* deal with those topics, I would be quite concerned.

But you are also wrong. The Reformation wasn't the biggest in human history. It was certainly smaller than the awakening of Islam, for example, or even that of Christianity. of course, there is also the split between the churches of the East and West, which was rather significant.

Any *decent* history of the relevant time periods will include these topics. Yes, even if it is a 'secular' history.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

This was the first Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening was the move away from religious models of government and other cultural institutions of the Middle Ages to the secularism of modernity. The benefits were incalculable. Taking faith out of the process of investigating physical reality converted the sterile pursuits of astrology and alchemy into the fertile sciences of astronomy and chemistry. And forming the modern, liberal, democratic state with guaranteed personal freedoms including freedom from religion required disregarding the commandment in the Christian Bible to submit to kings, which, of course, is the Christian model for life - people submit to a god, subjects to kings, slaves to masters, and wives to husbands.

That was a Great Awakening for the West.

On a personal note, I experienced a similar awakening when I transitioned from Christianity to secular humanism 35 years ago. I fog was lifted. Now that I have a sense of each, I prefer no religion to the religious life. I prefer making decisions using only reason applied to evidence, and not by faith. Life makes more sense, and I assure you that it is possible for many to feel complete, grounded, and purposeful without religion. What do you propose that the benefit would be to returning to religion for a person that has no need for it?

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations. But this ignores the very real & very significant impact of spiritual beliefs in society.

You haven't made the case that there is any value in a return to religion. It seems to be an assumption of yours that people are better off with more religiosity in their lives and in the world. As indicated, my personal experience was the opposite.I would like to see less religion in the world, not more.

You're here to push religion in a venue where you have to tread lightly when proselytizing. But you have nothing to offer the satisfied secular humanist. There is nothing spiritual about believing in spirits.

 

[HonestJoe]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations.

Bull! Plenty of “secular” education properly considers the spiritual motives of various individuals and events throughout history. You’ve either exclusively experienced bad education (which would be very unlucky) or you’re lying for effect (which would be very dishonest). The irony is that there was absolutely no point in your strawman as it has no relation to the historic events you went on to describe.

 

[metis]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history.

It wasn't ignored when I received my public education, nor did I ignore it when I taught in secular education.

I won't be going back too far. Any discussion about spiritual awakenings has to include the biggest one in human history: The Reformation. Some people view this as just political maneuvering. But they ignore the great volume of written works that provided the ideological basis for resisting the established religious institution. The Anabaptists, the Huguenots, & the concurrent protestant revival that swept through Europe unhinged the status quo, & threatened their power base. The establishment fought vigorously against it, killing, torturing, & undermining this spiritual awakening, for it not only upset the basis for their rule, but it went against their core beliefs. The divine right of kings, a professional priesthood, an aristocracy of privilege, & their right & duty to control the rest of humanity were all under attack by this awakening. So they fought it. They killed the apostates. They gave them 'second baptisms' by drowning them. They tortured them to deny this new found faith in late night inquisitions. They burned them openly at the stake, to deter any more departures from the status quo. But it did not work. Instead of nipping this new awareness in the bud, it spread like wildfire.

That's really quite a whitewashing of history since there are many examples of persecutions by Protestants as well. Ever study the treatment of Amerindians here in North America, which some historians believe may have been the largest actions of genocide in world history?

 

[night912]

One of the great flaws of a secular education is the ignoring of spiritual movements in history. Great effort is made to interpret the actions & thoughts of people through the lens of purely secular (or even anti-Christian!) motivations. But this ignores the very real & very significant impact of spiritual beliefs in society. It would be like future historians trying to explain the current terrorist actions without the driving belief system of Islam. You can't explain everything with a purely secular view, and it misses some important factors in our interactions.

I won't be going back too far. Any discussion about spiritual awakenings has to include the biggest one in human history: The Reformation. Some people view this as just political maneuvering. But they ignore the great volume of written works that provided the ideological basis for resisting the established religious institution. The Anabaptists, the Huguenots, & the concurrent protestant revival that swept through Europe unhinged the status quo, & threatened their power base. The establishment fought vigorously against it, killing, torturing, & undermining this spiritual awakening, for it not only upset the basis for their rule, but it went against their core beliefs. The divine right of kings, a professional priesthood, an aristocracy of privilege, & their right & duty to control the rest of humanity were all under attack by this awakening. So they fought it. They killed the apostates. They gave them 'second baptisms' by drowning them. They tortured them to deny this new found faith in late night inquisitions. They burned them openly at the stake, to deter any more departures from the status quo. But it did not work. Instead of nipping this new awareness in the bud, it spread like wildfire.

• The priesthood of believers, not a professional religious class.
• The authority of scriptures, not the ruling elite.
• The equality of man, not a divine order of elitism.

These were earth shaking revelations. It changed the course of history, & opened up the enlightenment era of reason, human freedom, & human equality. Philosophers began to question the authority structures, & called for them to be based on Natural Law, not mandates from a monarchy. The king was a mere man, & was not above the law.

About this same time, the new world was being settled with refugees & rejects from the European inquisitions. Quakers, Presbyterians, & Puritans moved en masse to start their religious utopias. They fled the intolerance & oppression of the European status quo, but at first, kept the intolerant part, demanding strict conformity to the tenets of their faith. Many religious colonies formed in the new world.

Massachusetts- Puritan separatists, with some English congregationalists.
Pennsylvania- Quaker, Mennonites, Moravians, Calvinists, Lutherans & more. A large segment from Germany came here.
New Amsterdam- Primarily a trading port, it become more diverse than some of the others. Jews, Lutherans, Scandinavian & Dutch fortune seekers mingled with the varied religious beliefs.
Virginia- Anglicans, loyal to the church of England were the bulk of the colonists there.
Maryland- In the irony of the reformation, English Catholics were no longer comfortable in protestant England, & many came to Maryland.
Rhode Island- The famous 'religious tolerance' colony, where outcasts from all the other colonies could come. It was not a large colony, but significant as a refuge for dissenters.

Almost all the colonies had some kind of religious basis.. they were formed as religious utopias, where the faithful could practice their beliefs without fear of persecution; all of them a direct result of the reformation. But after a few generations, the original religious fervor waxed cold, as it always does. Heartfelt piety gave way to ritual instruction, & the power of spiritual living waned. But by the mid 1700s, a significant movement began sweeping across protestant Europe, & it found its way to the new world. This was the first Great Awakening.

..more later..

Apparently you don't know what secular education is. It's because of secular education that the majority of the things you mentioned was taught.

As to your "Great Spiritual Awakening," it is more appropriate to call it, "the Great Religious Race," because each religious group was racing to grab their own land for themselves. And they didn't create any religious utopia, instead it was religious totalitarian. A religious utopia is what the USA is, a secular government. The government laws are above any laws of religion. If not for a secular government, the smaller Christian sects would have been persecuted in the early days of the country. Then one could say that Christians were persecuted because Christians persecuting Christians, is still persecution. Come to think of it, that's true regardless of it because Christians were persecuted by Christians already, that's why they fled the old world. The irony of it all was that they ran away from a religious totalitarian world in order to start their own religious totalitarian world. I don't call that a great spiritual awakening. Even the Mongolian Empire had a spiritual awakening because Genghis Khan did set up an actual utopia for religion.

 

[usfan]

If anyone wishes to refute my points, please do. But berating me is not a rebuttal, nor does it prove your point. It is a 'poison the well', fallacy.

 

[night912]

If anyone wishes to refute my points, please do. But berating me is not a rebuttal, nor does it prove your point. It is a 'poison the well', fallacy.

I did refute your points. And pointing out that you're incorrect about secular education isn't a "poisoning the well," fallacy.

I'll add another. Not all who made the voyage to the new world did it because they wanted a religious utopia. A lot of them were in search of gold. The first wave of settlers in Jamestown is an example.

 

[usfan]

I did refute your points. And pointing out that you're incorrect about secular education isn't a "poisoning the well," fallacy.

I'll add another. Not all who made the voyage to the new world did it because they wanted a religious utopia. A lot of them were in search of gold. The first wave of settlers in Jamestown is an example.

You expressed your opinion about secular education, which differs from mine. That is not a refutation. Maligning my education, understanding, or perspective is a poisoning the well fallacy.

A refutation would contain facts and arguments that exposed my points as flawed. You merely asserted a different opinion.

I did not claim that all who came to America were religious refugees. That is a straw man.

Slaves, traders, military men, adventurers, & entrepreneurs were also among the many early settlers.

But most history books in public education gloss over the significance and importance of the religious beliefs of the early American settlers.

How many contemporary American students have read, or even heard of Alexis De Tocqueville, for example?

Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion-for who can search the human heart?-But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.... Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

 

[night912]

You expressed your opinion about secular education, which differs from mine. It's not an opinion when you are wrong about secular education.

That is not a refutation. Maligning my education, understanding, or perspective is a poisoning the well fallacy. It's not poisoning the well to point out that you are wrong about something. Your topic is about the flaw of secular education, and if you are wrong about secular education, your statements do not show the flaws.

A refutation would contain facts and arguments that exposed my points as flawed. You merely asserted a different opinion. It's a fact that your argument was refuted. We learned about the pilgrims in school. So your point about not learning about the religious reasons as to why they moved to the new world was proven to be wrong.

I did not claim that all who came to America were religious refugees. That is a straw man. No, it's not a straw man because I'm showing that you were wrong about the settlers goal was to set up a religious utopia.

Slaves, traders, military men, adventurers, & entrepreneurs were also among the many early settlers.

But most history books in public education gloss over the significance and importance of the religious beliefs of the early American settlers. MOST history books. That's not the entirety of education. So SOME history books do teach it. You're not just trying to move the goal post here. You're just plain wrong.

How many contemporary American students have read, or even heard of Alexis De Tocqueville, for example? And how many have heard of Nietzsche, Freud, Augustine, Aquinas, etc? Those who go further in their education in a particular subject learns about significant people pertaining to that subject. It's just special pleading for you to throw in a particular person and use it to support your argument about education in general.

Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion-for who can search the human heart?-But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.... Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. ~Alexis De Tocqueville

That's why your argument was refuted. It's because of secular education that you are able to learn about history and its different views.

 

[usfan]

That's why your argument was refuted. It's because of secular education that you are able to learn about history and its different views.

My observation is contrary to this perception.

The current educational emphasis.. in general.. is memorized dogma, not a broad understanding of diverse perspectives. Most 'education' is just ideological indoctrination, to churn out useful idiots for the State.. 'fit tools for the design of ambition.'

Why are graduates from modern schools unable to spell, do simple arithmetic, or name even recent historical figures?

They can recite the doctrines of common descent, global warming, and the glory of socialism, but cannot do the simplest task requiring critical thinking or analysis.

Indoctrination, not education, is the goal of the State run institutions.

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. ~Albert Einstein

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. ~George Bernard Shaw

 

[night912]

My observation is contrary to this perception.

The current educational emphasis.. in general.. is memorized dogma, not a broad understanding of diverse perspectives. Most 'education' is just ideological indoctrination, to churn out useful idiots for the State.. 'fit tools for the design of ambition.'

Why are graduates from modern schools unable to spell, do simple arithmetic, or name even recent historical figures?

They can recite the doctrines of common descent, global warming, and the glory of socialism, but cannot do the simplest task requiring critical thinking or analysis.

Indoctrination, not education, is the goal of the State run institutions.

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. ~Albert Einstein

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. ~George Bernard Shaw

That's why your argument was refuted. And now you have nothing more to say for your argument.

Done.

 

[metis]

Indoctrination, not education, is the goal of the State run institutions.

As one who taught in public education for 36 years, I hate to say this but you simply don't know what you're talking about. As long as one continues to make up highly-partisan "alternative facts", it's impossible to have a serious discussion with them, so respond what you will but you simply are making up or parroting the above right-wing nonsense.