Religious or Spiritual Terms
See Charts: Five Types of Religious Expressions
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Theism: Belief that "God" exists. His identity is open to interpretation and to the breadth of the human imagination..
Agnosticism: Denies that man can know whether or not God exists. Therefore it also denies the validity of the Bible. The only certainties are those that can be proved by "science." It ignores the subjectiveness and cultural influences on what scientists are asked to "prove." (The global warming issue is a good example of ideological control over what scientists can say.)
Atheism: Denies the existence of any God, thought it is traditionally focused on the rejection of the Biblical God.
Deism: Accepts the reality of a Creator God -- based on nature and logic, ignoring Biblical revelation.
Monotheism: Belief in one God.
Panentheism: All (pan) is in God, yet God is transcendent over everything. (Notice the difference between panentheism and pantheism). Some would assume that as everything in the universe (positioned in God) evolves, this unbiblical God would also evolve and grow in knowledge and complextity.
Pantheism: Everything is God and God is all. Since God is everything and everything is God, everything is sacred and interconnected.
Polytheism. Belief in many (poly) gods or divine beings. Most ancient, primitive or tribal religions were polytheistic. See Charts: Five Types of Religious Expressions
Relativism: All philosophical points or positions are equally valid. Your "truth" is a true as my "truth." There are no absolutes, therefore the most pragmatic or popular position is likely to reign.
New Age Spirituality (occult): (From the Aquarian Age Community) "Spirituality refers to the evolutionary process as it drives us forward, eventually, to perfect wholeness. It relates to the expansion or evolution of consciousness. ...[A]ll activity -- be it physical, emotional, intuitional and so forth-that leads towards greater perfection, goodness and wholeness is therefore spiritual....
"Spiritual values are qualified by ever-widening horizons,
synthesis, growth and wholeness as well as greater vision, understanding and integration...."The spirit of man is undying; it forever endures, progressing from point to point and stage to stage upon the
Path of Evolution...."This group [the New Group of World Servers] gives the word 'spiritual' a wide significance; they believe it to mean an inclusive endeavour towards human betterment, uplift and understanding; they give it the connotation of tolerance, international
synthetic communion, religious inclusiveness, and all trends of thought which concern the esoteric development of the human being."Contemplative spirituality: "a belief system that uses ancient mystical practices to induce altered states of consciousness (the silence) and is rooted in mysticism and the occult but often wrapped in Christian terminology; the premise of contemplative spirituality is pantheistic (God is all) and panentheistic (God is in all)." [Lighthouse Trails Research]
Spiritual formation: "a movement that has provided a platform and a channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church. Find spiritual formation being used, and in nearly every case you will find contemplative spirituality. In fact, contemplative spirituality is the heartbeat of the spiritual formation." [Lighthouse Trails Research]
Lectio Divina: "Lectio Divina", a Latin term, means 'divine reading' and describes a way of reading the Scriptures whereby we gradually let go of our own agenda and open ourselves to what God wants to say to us. In the 12th century, a Carthusian monk called Guigo, described the stages which he saw as essential to the practice of Lectio Divina....
1. "Lectio (reading) where we read the Word of God, slowly and reflectively so that it sinks into us. Any passage of Scripture can be used....
2. "Meditatio (reflection) where we think about the text we have chosen and ruminate upon it so that we take from it what God wants to give us.
3. "Oratio (response) where we leave our thinking aside and simply let our hearts speak to God. This response is inspired by our reflection on the Word of God.
4. "Contemplatio (rest) where we let go not only of our own ideas, plans and meditations but also of our holy words and thoughts. We simply rest in the Word of God. We listen at the deepest level of our being to God who speaks within us with a still small voice. As we listen, we are gradually transformed from within."
What is the meaning of the term, spiritual? (From the Aquarian Age Community) "Spirituality refers to the evolutionary process as it drives us forward, eventually, to perfect wholeness. It relates to the expansion or evolution of consciousness. And, thus all activity-be it physical, emotional, intuitional and so forth-that leads towards greater perfection, goodness and wholeness is therefore spiritual. ...
Spiritual values are qualified by ever-widening horizons, synthesis, growth and wholeness as well as greater vision, understanding and integration. ...
"The word 'spiritual' does not refer to religious matters, so-called. All activity which drives the human being forward towards some form of development... is essentially spiritual.... The spirit of man is undying; it forever endures, progressing from point to point and stage to stage upon the Path of Evolution, unfolding steadily and sequentially the divine attributes and aspects. ....
"This group [the New Group of World Servers] gives the word 'spiritual' a wide significance; they believe it to mean an inclusive endeavour towards human betterment, uplift and understanding; they give it the connotation of tolerance, international synthetic communion, religious inclusiveness, and all trends of thought which concern the esoteric development of the human being."
(now inseperable from Confucianism and Buddhism, which blend together in today's Chinese folk religions): Most Chinese people "do not distinguish themselves as Confucianists or Buddhists or Taoists. They follow a general religion, which antedates, combines and overshadows all the so-called 'three religions.' This general cult is characterized by several prominent features:
1. Animism and polytheism. The "spirits of Heaven.... the spirits of Earth..... the spirits of human brings, especially ancestors... and the spirits of inanimate objects" are part of this variable pantheon of deities. Through the centuries, some gods have disappeared "while others have emerged."
2. Worship of Shang-ti, a major heavenly spirit. "Until 1912, it was the supreme duty of the emperor to make sacrifice to him on behalf of the people."...
3. Ancestral worship. "As the foundation of things is Heaven, so the foundation of man is the ancestors."
4. Worship of Confucius. "As ancestor worship is the extension of filial piety, so the worship of Confucius is the extension of respect for a teachers. The Chinese worship Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Sakyamuni (Buddhist deity).
5. Superstitions. This blend of Three Religions "includes a strong element of superstition called shu shu, or divination and witchcraft.... based on the belief that the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi), Yin Yang or the negative and positive cosmic forces, the Five Elements and the Eight Trigrams could be so coordinated and controlled as to bring about good fortune." The search for long life and blessings was first "first promoted by the priest-magicians feng shi),and later crystallized in the Huang Lao movement. From then on, astrology, almanacs, dream interpretation, feng shui, witchcraft, phrenology, palmistry, Ouija to recall the soul, and fortunetelling in all forms have played an important part...."
6. Ethics. "...Worship is dominated by gratitude and superstation is dominated by fear. In each case the underlying movie is ethical. Ethical ideals ... are predominantly Confucian....
7. The Chinese even when they attend Buddhist and Taoist temples, worship Buddhist and Taoist deities as part of a general pantheon. [Vergilius Fern, An Ecyclopedia of Religion (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1945), pp.143-145]
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