Is the author really being sacrilegious (as he states) or just offering a differing opinion?

Use this forum to discuss the December 2020 Book of the month, "Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe" by Hilary L Hunt M.D.
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Timothy Rucinski
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Re: Is the author really being sacrilegious (as he states) or just offering a differing opinion?

Post by Timothy Rucinski »

Back in the day, this would definitely have been sacrilegious, perhaps resulting in Church-sanctioned execution. But those days are behind us, thank goodness. There's nothing sacrilegious here, just a personal analysis (or re-analysis) of what came before. I personally believe it necessary to keep questioning and assessing church teachings, voicing opinions related to personal beliefs, but not belittling others who hold a deep and personal reverence for the doctrines already in place.
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Post by BellAJoEb »

No one is indeed perfect when it comes to belief. We are all subject to personal bias. But I think some things like the content and not the teachings of the bible thereof are immutable.


Hence you can not just come up with a different "translation ". However, the church teaching s and/or mode might come up as different. When it touches the content it can likely be term as sacrilegious or blasphemy.
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Adanna Inya
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Post by Adanna Inya »

The author has a right to opinion, which was well explored. There was no sacrilege whatsoever. Hilary simply expressed her point of view about the church. I may not agree with everything said, but she is bold.
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Post by Heidadela »

People learn and experience a particular thing together but the way each one translates it is different from how others perceive the same thing. Therefore, I believe he is just offering his own opinion or perspective, which is okay.
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Post by zulfiyya »

I think technically he was being sacrilegious because priests are so anal about their word being the only word, but it's also impossible not to have various interpretations that are not exactly identical to a priest because the bible can easily be interpreted any which way.
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Post by Njatha77 »

I think it could be both. Having dabbled (past tense :D) in atheism before, I could totally relate to the author's concerns and completely understood what he meant.
However, for a very conservative person the author's analysis could be interpreted as sacrilegious. Either way he does raise some interesting questions.
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Post by Fajarr »

I don't think the author is sacrilegious. Maybe bold enough to challenge and test the common beliefs, but I strongly believe that God doesn't have a problem with that and we shouldn't either. We can never experience deeper understading if we don't allow ourselves to think outside of the box. Whether the result of this type of thinking is correct or not, is another question.
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