Seminary Program

This is where we post the essays from many of our Universal Life Church Seminary students. When students finish a ULC course, they write a comprehensive essay about their experiences with the course, what they learned, didn't learn, were inspired by, etc. Here are their essays.

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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Religious Philosophy

Below you will find a copy of "Essay on Religious Philosophy".
 
Robert Chamberlain evidently devoted considerable time and effort in researching and compiling the piece he titles "Religious Philosophy". The text is articulate and concise. Although there may be a questionable proposition concerning the title. This writer considers, with the sociological data contained within the presentation, that more appropriately the thesis would merit an association with sociology, id EST, "Sociology of Religion" or "Religious Sociology". Chamberlain's title "Religious Philosophy" stands, however. "That be as it may", let us get on with a description of Chamberlain's work.
 
Wait! Just one more thing. About a month ago I had virtually all of this essay written. Well, six hundred + words were written. Among other things, I had to petition President Long for one lesson which evaporated from the computer. Speaking of evaporation: My wife, at least I attribute the evaporation to her (wink, wink), caused my Incredimail (email program) to stop taking re-installations. Having run out of solutions for recapturing the e-mail program, I did a major system restoration which took at least two days and nights. During this time the computer was not available for anything else. The System Restoration and several additional restoration attempts proved futile. Not good. All my attempts at recovery did not accomplish the goal. I wrote an e-mail to President Amy letting her know of my predicament. I even considered "saying 'phooey and forgetting the whole thing". All things being equal, I "tabled" the situation for several weeks. Now the "essay" is again being written without the careful punctuation and formatting and extending the apologies, perhaps to no avail.
 
By-the-way, the previous form will not be adhered.
 
This student liked the way "Religious Philosophy" was researched (speculation), written and presented. There may have been an element or two in the twenty-four lessons that (I opine) were questionable.
 
Covered were the Western religions such as Jewish, Islamic, Christian, etc. And the Eastern; Buddhism, Jaine, Hindu, Shinto, Sikhs, Taoism, Confucianism, Bushido, Ainu, Ch'ondogyo, Cao Dai, Khmer, etc
 
Lesson nineteen was full of some very interesting data on smaller more or less "local" religious body's throughout Asia that were found to be very much akin to this student's belief system. I've offered just a few. It is up to the readers of this essay to guess which ones or one to which this writer has an affinity. That may be easier said than done considering that this writer left no description of these aforementioned data.
 
Within the text there were items that were new to me. During this writers lifetime he has been and maybe still is a self-styled Buddhist. There has been considerable exploration of the "religious domain".
 
Brother Jack Kerouac and I share this manifestation. 




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1 comment:

Rick Robbins said...

Lesson 2
In regard to the lesson discussing three concepts, and there precepts, I look at the military . The concepts of Mission first, no matter what you do or how you do it the mission needs to be accomplished. Train as you fight, fight as you train, when you train you respond to every scenario as it where real with the proper techniques. This way you will never have to think twice. Integrity, when no one is looking will you do the right thing, this I believe it one of the most important.
Precepts would be, following orders. You have to learn to interpret and follow orders because the lives of your fellow Soldiers and your own will depend on that. How to operate equipment, the military has a vast array of equipment that you use, and the success of the mission could depend on it. Last, tactics, there are tried and proven tactics you can use to make your mission a success and they are taught to very Soldier.
2.). On being one, I believe as I am part of my biological Father, I am part of God the Father. As far as is there really evil, I believe there is. I have seen it many times. I believe there is a devil who uses it to make us question God as to why it happens trying to pull us away. The rest of the thought of essence, matter and are we truly here...I am very convinced we are, any man who has ever taken a scrotum shot can attest to that.
3.) Thinking about orthopraxy in religion I think about my Grandfather. He was a devout Catholic, he attended mass on a regular bases, he prayed the Rosary every night before he went to bed, he served the church and tied appropiately.
I am Episcopalin and try to basically do the best I can.
I look at the bible and see nothing similar in the definition of worship as to the demands of the Anglican church and I feel comfortable in my short comings of their demands.
I believe in what Jesus said to his disciples, when two or more are gather in my name, I am there.