(1) To what extent is a secular philosophy of explicitly stated loving kindness less likely to lend itself to atrocities than religious doctrines in which the virtue of loving kindness is mixed in with a variety of other ideas that are hard-to-understand and unloving and unkind? In other words, if the core value of loving kindness is clear and simple, to what extent do we then know what to strive for, and can thereby focus on the challenging task of figuring out how best to put loving kindness into practice, economically and politically?
(2) The description ‘hard to understand’ applies to the question of , for example, why an all-loving god would require his son to be tortured and murdered so that he could forgive humankind for our innate sinfulness, a propensity within humans which that god created in the first place. The response from Christians has often been that the “ways of God are not understandable by man.”
(3) But if we are to follow what is impossible for us to understand, would that not seem to extol obedience itself as a virtue ?
(4) Regarding the Beatitudes, Christ promises rewards in the afterlife. How does that match up with seeing virtue as based in acting on principle according to one’s concern for others, and not based on seeking a reward in heaven nor seeking to avoid punishment in hell ?
(5) How can Christ command us to love with all our heart while warning us about eternal punishment in hell?
(6) If we believe that Christ’s message of love is his primary command, what bearing does it have to account for the fact that people taught the importance of love, including love for one’s enemies, centuries before Christ?
(7) To what extent have you considered whether human beings can more effectively act on loving kindness and thereby build a better world if we focus on the actual attitudes and behaviors related to empathy and compassion, without necessarily basing them in religious doctrine ? This question occurs whenever I read the New Testament where Christ’s message of love is mixed in with a lot of other material, much of it unloving. That would apply also to the Old Testament, the Quran, and other sacred texts.
(4) If thru obedience we let go of our responsibility to understand right and wrong, what state of morality do we then find ourselves in?
(5) In that light, to what extent does it seem to you that authoritarianism is a component of religion, especially within its fundamentalist strains?
(6) How compatible are authoritarianism and loving kindness? My guess is that when there is less personal freedom, one’s capacity to act morally is constrained. One could also argue that authoritarian political and economic elite demonstrate organized unkindness.
(19) Regarding which things Jesus said and which things were written in there later for the church, what are your thoughts on Matthew 10 : 14-15; 33-38 ; Matthew 11: 20-24; Matthew 13: 38-43, and other unloving red-letter passages?
(20) To what extent do you relate to the claim that Christianity skews our moral calculus in so far as it involves being motivated by the threat or fear of punishment in hell or the promise or hope of reward in heaven, instead of acting on the principle of loving others?
(21) How does the following idea pertain to loving kindness : Christ died as ransom paid to God the Father, so that whoever believes will have God’s forgiveness of our sins and receive eternal life in heaven?
(22) Some scholars contend Jesus Christ made enemies because he didn’t deliver political revolution against the Roman occupiers, but instead preached a type of ethical revolution that challenged the legitimacy of organized religion during his lifetime 2,000 years ago. To what extent might that revolutionary idea he taught be loving kindness? But what are your thoughts regarding the idea that the radical ethical revolution that Christ stood for was such that he would not approve of Christianity itself in any of its forms of organized religion, that it the power structure of organized religion, whether theocratic or not, undermines loving kindness ?
(23) To what extent do you think human beings can best connect with the divine via living according to a principle, such as being being lovingly kind with all of one’s might, as distinguished from striving to have a relationship with a divine personality? Joseph Campbell may have written about this concept.
(24) To what extent are the parts of religions that don’t pertain to loving kindness, unnecessary, if not destructive in terms of negative things such as authoritarianism?
(25) To what extent is there something conducive to loving kindness within religion that we cannot find in Secular Humanism, but may find within ‘ecocentrism’ ?
(26) In light of Washington Gladden’s description of being accountable every Sunday for keeping his promise in his response to a letter regarding the hypocrisy religious people, how does one find in Christianity a basis of personal accountability that one does not find in Secular Humanism? I ask because it would seem to me that a humanist ethical system based in loving kindness would lend itself to accountability moreso than Christianity, given the clarity of the former and the mixed scriptural messages of the latter. In other words, we can speculate about heaven or hell or the origins of the universe. But it’s much more evident how our behavior toward one another affects how just and loving our world is.
(27) If loving one another as members of the community of life on Earth is what matters, then how can it matter what religion we identify with, or whether we identify with any religion?
(28) To what extent are the things that distinguish one religion from another based not in principles of lovingkindness but instead concepts pertaining to the origins of the universe and what may exist for us before we are born and after we die ‘in this life’ and how we may end up in heaven or hell ?
(29) To what extent might it be the case that if we focus on what is unprovable or undisprovable, we might detract from our ability to focus our efforts on what we do know : how our behavior towards one another as beings on this planet shapes the type of world we live in ?
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