I <3 Sunday

Because it gives me the perfect venue for theological discussions.

Today the themes were:

• Adam & Eve (more specifically the concept of Eve's role in terms of our human existence). Exploring this issue allowed me to look at this as a parable and I ended up considering that Eve was a victim of Patristism (and by this I mean male religious scholars). I think the parable has been misinterpreted and I think that Eve was actually heroic (please don't smite me if you disagree) in choosing to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
• The rite of baptism. more so, though, on the purpose of which this ritual serves. (it was an offshoot of the concept below) but worthy of mentioning on its own. My thoughts here are that it acts as a means to seal the individual with a community by creating and extended metaphorical family and thus establishing a covenant with God.
• Original sin. I have trouble with this concept, so I explored its meaning to other religions... it seems to be pretty Christian in nature. There are two schools of thought 1) that it is the genetic (of sorts) inheritance from the "sin of Adam" or that it 2) refers to a general state of sinfulness. My tendency is to think that if God exists, we would be perfect creations and as such that even our imperfections make us perfect (which aligns with how I see sciences like biology, chemistry, physics and such to be so magnificent that they are perfect in design).

There is nothing like some light philosophical ponderings on a Sunday morning... I suppose I should clarify why I even feel  that I need to share my beliefs (or possibly non-beliefs)... I call myself an agnostic, and more specifically I lean toward agnostic theism. I find thinking of these things to be profound and helpful in my understanding of the world in which I live.I don't focus on the Western religions, I look at everything based on what gets discussed around me on any given Sunday. I've explored many issues, many ideas, many disciplines. I wanted to keep a record of my thoughts, so I decided to put them here, open wide for anyone who cares to share an idea (hopefully with a generous and kind spirit) with me as I ponder these notions. I hope it works out OK.

One thing further on my agnosticism.... I once asked someone I profoundly respect if they believed in God. They replied to this question by saying "I don't worry about things that are untestable". I don't know that I can say the same, I enjoy thinking about the concept too much.