Egypt's Facebook revolution: is it spiritual?

Better off settling down. Start a new babybook. Economy here is wrecked. Keeping the peace and no riots. I lead a quiet life, people don't know what I'm doing and I don't care what they are doing. Like Jesus, you tell them you are for peace and they want you dead and that's no good for business.

To Klausdmk and Spidermean2:
We all have to choose to believe certain things in order to sort out life and move forward on a daily basis. However, the fact that a single person or a group of people choose to believe an idea in no way makes that idea true. Belief and faith can be very useful and positive, but we all have a moral responsibility to distinguish between what we choose to believe, or have been taught to believe, and what can be supported by a preponderance of all (accumulating) evidence. Feeling that we "know" something because of internal experience does not make it true, nor does having faith in what someone else taught us. We have a particular responsibility when teaching others, particularly children, to identify whether "I believe this to be true" or "the preponderance of independent evidence points to this being fact." While this may be a "naturalist" position, it is the only way we can responsibly teach religion, or science or anything else.

I doubt that you were on the face of the earth 2000 years ago and actually met Jesus, so everything you might "know" about him and his teachings is at best interpreted by many others along the way, or based on a personal inner experience. If having an inner/spiritual experience of something or someone were enough to make it an absolute/universal truth, then we would have to accept that what anyone says they experienced is a absolute truth. There would be no way to decide who’s “truth” is actually true. That’s why faith is a personal choice.

All information and ideas are open to question. But, from a practical point of view, we have to put a certain level of trust in information to make decisions. But the more the ideas impact lives, the more careful we need to be. There is big difference in significance of life impact between teaching someone that John Kennedy was shot by a single person or by a conspiracy of many, and teaching someone that if you have faith in Jesus you will have eternal life.

Therefore, on info and ideas, we all have a duty to be humble enough to say "I have chosen to believe this, but I only have second hand information." Or "I feel like I know this and it's true, but I wasn't there and didn't experience it for myself." This is not an absolute truth, but it will make for a much healthier world.

Darwinian Evolution is called science because some idiots said it so. It is the only science that has no rules unlike any other science.

Unless these idiots would be able to teach a chimp to recite a single word, they should teach their monkey science in a jungle full of monkeys.

None of these idiots are engineers.

Gay marriage, Darwinian evolution, atheism, liberalism, etc.

Yes, this is madness and horrible and God will save this nation from this quagmire.

Since America can't cleanse itself from within, it will be cleansed by an outside force.

That is the prophesy.

'Mike Huckabee, the conservative former Arkansas governor, this weekend said that he is concerned about Islam's role in Egypt's future. As On Faith panelist Reza Aslan this week noted, Huckabee has also called for Americans to "take this nation back for Christ" and, while running for president in 2008, declared that "what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards."'

BOTTOM LINE: HUCKABEE IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS THREAT TO OUR FREEDOM. He is SO ignorant of science that he doesn't have any understanding of biological and geological evolution, or of the genetic and hormonal determinants of sexual orientation.
MAY GOD (or someone/something) save our Freedom from such GROSS IGNORANCE!

Posted by: spidermean2:

"...Beware LIBERAL parts of America because judgment is coming. The wicked shall be destroyed as prophesied in the Bible.

Gay marriage, Darwinian evolution, atheism, liberalism, etc."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

GEEZE! May God (or something, or anything) save our Nation from Idiots like this!

Madness! Horrible!

The Arab world is changing. They are toppling rulers who are sympathetic to America and Israel.

Beware LIBERAL parts of America because judgment is coming. The wicked shall be destroyed as prophesied in the Bible.

Gay marriage, Darwinian evolution, atheism, liberalism, etc.

"Taking the nation back for Christ?" I wasn't aware that Christ ever owned Egypt. Huckabee's

Huckabee was talking about the US, not Egypt. Though, it should be noted that prior to the 6th century AD, Egypt was largely Christian.

What is spiritual in the Islam religion of the Muslim world is very different from what is spiritual in the Christian body of believers in Jesus Christ.

(1 Tim 2) Apostle Paul said, “I exhort you therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority;

That we may “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”, “this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who will have “all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
Paul said, “Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” For,
“There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”
The Islam religion rejects new life in the spirit of Jesus Christ. The Islam holy book Koran and the Islam Sharia law are very different from the Bible and the teaching of Moses. The practice we see of Islam in the world today is political and a social movement to control governments that will conform to the Muslim world.

Your effort to connect Facebook or social networking with the concept of "spiritual but not religious" is completely off base.

"Spiritual but not religious" just means that the person does not ascribe to a particular religion. They could be saying they consider spirituality more personal than religion. Or might be saying that they don't consider themselves atheists, but have yet to further define it.

This has nothing to do with Facebook. It has its place and no one can doubt its power in aiding democratic progress, but is not spiritual. Spirituality is complex and personal, and individuals often have difficulty defining it even in their own minds. FB is too limited a medium for expressing spirituality. And the attention-seeking that it promotes, in addition to the watering-down of messages for a mass audience, is degrading.

"Taking the nation back for Christ?" I wasn't aware that Christ ever owned Egypt. Huckabee's comment smacks of the same brand of Christianity whose proponents once slaughtered anyone who didn't believe their Christian god to be superior. I have seen no protestors running through Cairo carrying pictures of Jesus or crosses. What drives these people is desperation after years of suffering under despotic rule. What the US and everyone else has to do is stay out of the way until Egyptians decide exactly what kind of government they want. If it's democracy and they ask for help, we should give it without trying to steer a president of our own choosing into office. But we shouldn't assume tha just because we have democracy in the US, everyone else wants it as well. We've had more than enough trouble lately making it work here.

"They are expressing themselves, their aspirations, their need for jobs and a decent life, and they are filling the streets in Egypt. And if that's not spiritual, I don't know what is."
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I don't think Ms Thistlethwaite knows what "spirituality" is, unless it is defined as "materialism" which is what this quotation indicates. Even the attempt to recover "human dignity" speaks more to secular humanism than it does to "spirituality." Perhaps Ms. Thistlethwaite should think through and define her terms rather than assume them simply because she is writing under the rubric of "Faith."

Susan, I like your article. The idea that a separation of state and religion is possible is a farce anyway. Consider a simple example of it's current operation in the U.S., when we go before a Judge in Court we are presented with the opportunity (euphemism)to swear to tell the truth. What does this represent, who am I swearing to? If I am swearing to the Judge, then I must point out that Biblical scripture states that swearing under these sort of conditions is prohibited, that is not of God.

Anyway, if and when the "God in humanity," as you prefer, is truly speaking, I hope we will know it and answer appropriately through our actions.

Take a look at two publications which address Spirituality from this point of view. See "One Voice" and "Destiny," at: fewforeverwords.wordpress.com.

:)

Funny how two years ago on these boards we were decrying how web anonymity allowed people to vent their anti-Semitism in the wake of the Bernard Madoff scandal.

The Internet is sometimes called The Great Democratizer because anyone can post anything for The People to read, no matter how offensive it may be the sensitivities of those in power. Totalitarian governments understand this, and have set up The Great Firewall of China, or cut-off access during popular-led "crises" like the Iranian election demonstrations.

Getting back to Madoff, why did so many educated Jewish individual and organizations get into such an obvious scam? And why can't we discuss it openly and respectfully, without being accused of being the second coming of Goebbels?