- Below we describe some of the categories that generate questions that help explore and extend our understanding of the growth of the chasm between sacred and secular. It may be of interest to some that even the raising of “questions” is a caricature of the Secular and especially of the science part of the Secular. One is not encouraged to raise questions about anything in the Sacred. In fact, there the raising of questions led to death in the past. At the other extreme, for the Secular the raising of questions is an essential aspect of critical thinking. As this website represents both the Secular and the Sacred, we thought it essential to consider the role of questions in learning and mental evolution from both viewpoints. (as a counterargument some might immediately reply that the entire method of one of the greatest Catholic Church fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas in his lifework, the Summa Theologica, took the form of answering asked questions.) [42F/W’13]
- Some of the most divisive components of both the secular and the sacred are extensions of belief, tenet and dogma that do not actually appear in the historical record of the initiators. These disruptive components need to be exposed and explored for their precedents and validity. For example, in one version of the New Testament, Jesus explicitly commands his apostles NOT to add even one small requirement to those he has put forward. Yet we know that some of the major organizations that purport to be his successors and true to his work have added many beyond his explicit sayings (Virgin birth; Infallibility; depreciation of women; even precise definitions of divinity of Jesus). [43F/W’13]
- For example, one of the “lineages” of dialogue that follows is titled, “Questions They Didn’t Ask Jesus.” Since they were not asked, earlier historical positions, themselves with unclear lines of authority are projected as dogma’s side-by-side with those directly covered by Jesus. A very big caveat here are the many times recorded in the New Testament when Jesus rebuked his own disciples for ways they were thinking or behaving that seemed to them to be required but for which he had completely opposite instructions. Even those dogma’s directly covered in the sayings of various prophets and initiators of religions are heavily influenced by the pre-existing cultures and human biases present. Some of these are the source of increased pressure for separation of Secular and Sacred. [44F/W’13]
- Meanwhile there are questions considered unanswerable by the Secular given current human capacity that the Secular (or Science) will not admit in their discussions. Admitting these to the arena could lessen the separation, but are not engaged at all. One of these is ethics and values. There is a vast hunger for values and guidance for values across all the levels of humanity that Science explicitly states cannot come from its domain. Still that hunger and need must be satisfied. [45F/W’13]
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