BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually, Bro, I was going to ask you how CS [Christian Science]
> felt about it? [masturbation] Does it lead to a loss of
> spirituality that leads to illness? Does anyone
> even talk about it?

I'll try and explain clearly. Concisely? Probably not.

Although CS and LDS share many things in common (their own revelation, charismatic founders, religious elitism), they are polar opposites when it comes to concepts and the discussion of sin. LDS goes into it in obsessive detail. In CS, sin--as specific behavior, especially at the personal level--is hardly discussed at all. Sure CS'ists decry murder, dishonesty, etc. But it is usually referenced vaguely as "carnal thought," "the flesh," and with their own distinctive nomenclature: "mortal mind."

For all its pseudo-Christianity, CS is--conceptually-closer to Eastern thought or Plato's "absolute idealism" (which they would vigorously deny, until you get them cornered.) Here's what they believe: The physical, material realm (from Higgs Boson particles to galaxies and black holes, including your neurological matrix and your boner) does not exist. It is an illusion, a kind of matrix, that exists only because you THINK it exists and perceive it through your equally non-existent physical senses. What really "REALLY" exists is "Immortal Mind" or "Spirit." They use this syllogism to explain:

1) God is all; God is all-in-all.
2) God is Spirit. Therefore, Spirit is all, all there really "REALLY" is--the only genuine Reality. (Hope you're following me; think of Plato's "forms" or the Hindu concept of "Maya.")
3) "Matter" is the opposite of "Spirit."
4) Since "Spirit" is all there is, the only Reality, matter (its opposite) cannot, does not, exist.

Therefore, matter is an illusion. They often use the concept of "dream," which has no true reality except in thought, as an analogy to the realm of deceptive "mortal mind," opposite of true, spiritual "Immortal Mind."

This gets us to CS "healing." Bad things (illness, injury, dysfunctional relationships, financial hardship, etc.) are all part of the fallen/illusory "mortal mind." To overcome the illusion of, say, cancer, you have to purge your thought of "cancer" and replace it with the spiritually correct understanding of your true "perfection." As you advance in this, your higher spiritual thought will eradicate the corrupted material belief that you have a "cancer," because there is no such thing as cancer in God's perfect creation--you.

Now we get (at last!) to your question about CS and sin. If you think about bad things (like sickness), talk about them, diagnose them, worry about them, you are more likely to get them. Thus, CS'ists do not talk about sickness and problems, because that reinforces the false negative belief that they are real. As a child, I was sometimes removed from certain health classes so as not to have my CS thought contaminated.

So, Boner--here, finally, is the payload!--they don't talk about sin with specifics. To talk about corrupt, mortal things like lust, masturbation, greed, gluttony, resentments, is to give those nasty things a reality they don't really have--in the metaphysical sense. And if you think about sickness and sin (even death!), then you give those unspiritual illusions a legitimacy and reality they don't really, REALLY, have.

Can't say that's CS in a nutshell, can I? Both LDS and CS have bizarre concepts that they don't divulged, sometimes because they are just too complicated to explain, other times because they are just too weird. Last thought: LDS postures itself as a very sociaable, family-oriented religion, when it really isn't. CS postures itself as intellectual and erudite, but it ain't.

Mr. Spock eyebrows--"Fascinating!"

So, the current Mormon emphasis on things like the dangers of porn is actually sinful because it focuses my mind on the false world of the physical flesh rather than engaging my mind in the ideal of God's perfect creation in me. Am I getting this right?

Ergo, going in for my 6-month CT cancer scans is sinful because my spiritual self is focused on my carnal worries of the flesh (cancer). Both masturbation and cancer CT scans are sinful because they enslave my spiritual mind on ways of the physical flesh...?

I went to school with CS friends. They were very well-liked, and one was student body president. Very successful young men. The only reason I knew they were CS is that they were excused from health class and sex ed.

Now, that second to the last word I wrote...what do CSists think of sex?

Some things written by Alfred Farlow (who was head of the Christian Science Church's "Committee on Publication," set up by Mary Baker Eddy) may be relevant to this thread. One of the activities of the Committee on Publication is to correct public misconceptions about Christian Science, and Farlow had Eddy's personal guidance in doing this. Thus it is interesting to read how he spoke about the Christian Science view of matter to people.

In a 1904 article in the Boston Times, Farlow wrote:

"...one [critic of Christian Science] lately said, 'The basic teaching of Christian Science is that there is no matter,' when in fact this abstract statement is a rather remote conclusion which is neither understood nor acceptable to the individual unless he first has some knowledge of the premise upon which it is based. ... Even a Christian Scientist would stumble over this ... if he were not previously prepared for it.

"The statement, 'there is no matter,' standing alone and independent of any qualification, seems to mean that everything that we see, -- the entire creation, -- is non-existent, while in truth Christian Science teaches that all things, from the least to the greatest, are real, though not what they seem to the peculiar sense of those who have not yet learned to perceive them as God made them, and as they really are." (Quoted in Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority, pages 302 - 303.)

Farlow also wrote something similar in an article titled "There is no matter":

"[Christian Science] does not teach that the visible universe is an illusion, but that each created thing, from the least to the greatest, is real, though not what it seems to the concept of those who have not learned to regard it from a spiritual viewpoint." (Christian Science Sentinel, December 31, 1904, page 278

Another quote from Farlow. This is from an article he wrote for the Greenburg, PA Star, which was reprinted on page 38 of the September 17, 1904 Christian Science Sentinel:

"Scarcely a criticism appears on the subject of Christian Science which does not include an allegation to the effect that Christian Science teaches that all creation is an illusion, and that man has no body.

"This erroneous belief regarding the premise of Christian Science leads to ridiculous conclusions. This Science does not teach the unreality of any perceptible thing, but raises the question as to what it really is. It is not the phenomena of nature which are denied by Christian Science, but the humanized, material sense of them. Christian Science interprets the nature and consistency of creation from a spiritual view-point and teaches one to know it as God made it, and as it appears to Him. ...

"As a matter of fact, a Christian Scientist, having some insight into the spirituality of God's creation, beholds in nature a new beauty and satisfaction. As one grows spiritually, the things on earth will not disappear, but will become more vivid, even as an object beheld through a veil presents fairer and stronger outlines when the covering is lifted. The perishable, imperfect things which we now view will be discerned in all their spirituality, beauty, and perfection as our erroneous, human concepts disappear. Nature will be seen as bearing the imprint of the divine Mind, the Supreme Being."

Here are a couple of quotations from a biography of Mary Baker Eddy by Stephen Gottschalk titled Rolling Away the Stone:

From page 165:

...for Eddy, the denial of the reality of matter as a consequence of the primacy and infinitude of Spirit did not wipe out the reality of nature and the meaning of present experience. She used an ordinary object to ask an extraordinary question: "Is a stone spiritual?" "To erring material sense," she wrote, "No!" But to a more accurate spiritual perception, she continued, the only actual existence of a stone, as "a small manifestation of Mind [God]," is spiritual. ... She then reached the bottom line of her metaphysics: "The only logical conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds in the most subtle ether, to a potato-patch."

That "potato-patch" does not fit into the conventional Christian cosmology that pictures two kinds of reality: the ultimate reality of God and his kingdom into which we will pass after death, as well as the immediate, tangible reality of the human condition in which we now dwell. God's universe, she said, is the only actual creation, and it is really here in all its multifarious expressions of life and varieties of form, color, and outline. She insisted that it is human limitation alone that mistakes the true spiritual nature of that universe by defining it as mortal and material.

And from page 31 of Gottschalk's biography:

Eddy did hold that reality is, in truth, spiritual -- that matter is not objectively substantial, but represents a finite, limited view of God's creation, which is spiritual and solidly present. But far from an assertion that all we experience is unreal -- that there are no rocks, mountains, flowers, or trees, or that others whom we encounter and love do not exist -- her view was akin to Paul's statement that 'we see through a glass darkly.'

Did you grow up in Christian Science?

Are you telling us you have cancer? :(

Hi Kathleen, I've had cancer, chemo, and I'm a survivor. I get checked every six months. No worries!

This thread is for my friend Caffiend who was Christian Scientist. I was raised in a non-religious, generic Christian home with no church attendance. We did eat ham on Easter, had a Christmas tree and, remarkably, ate fish on Fridays.

This will top the post. I looking forward to Caffiend's replies. Da Bone.

christian science is an oxymoron.
Mary Baker Eddy was buried with telephone in her coffin so she could summon help.

She blinded me with science and hit me with technology.

A phone in Eddy's coffin is an old urban myth. No truth whatsoever--I've looked into this extensively.

"Christian Science is neither Christian nor a science" comes from Mark Twain. George Carlin used it, but it's not original to him.

Been away from the keyboard, Boner, let me read these posts...

Is that really true?

I wonder if they keep someone waiting by the Mary Baker Eddy hotline 24/7, you know, just in case...

midwestanon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is that really true?
>
> I wonder if they keep someone waiting by the Mary
> Baker Eddy hotline 24/7, you know, just in case...

No, it is not true. See:

http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/research/myth-a-phone-in-mary-baker-eddys-tomb/

I'll get back to you a little later, Boner, but I'm busy working on city paperwork for an 02/28 deadline. Damned Demoncrat mayor jacked my property taxes up 19.56% (I live in a sanctuary city) to welcome illegal guests.

I hope "CSer" shares a bit about his CS background. I was 4th generation CS, the son and brother of CS "teachers" ("CSB"). His long post requires careful parsing; I may have to bring out my inner-Hie-to-Kolob for a major dissection.

For starters, I'll point out that cultists are adept at masking their more extreme, offensive, and irrational beliefs with lesser doctrine (e.g. "milk before meat"), euphemisms and evasions to disarm outsiders critics and skeptics. CSists take it to a high art. That is what CSer has done, above.

More later.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope "CSer" shares a bit about his CS
> background. I was 4th generation CS, the son and
> brother of CS "teachers" ("CSB"). His long post
> requires careful parsing; I may have to bring out
> my inner-Hie-to-Kolob for a major dissection.
>
> For starters, I'll point out that cultists are
> adept at masking their more extreme, offensive,
> and irrational beliefs with lesser doctrine (e.g.
> "milk before meat"), euphemisms and evasions to
> disarm outsiders critics and skeptics. CSists take
> it to a high art. That is what CSer has done,
> above.

My CS background: second generation CS, class taught by a Christian Science teacher (CSB) in Salt Lake City.

Do you really think that Christian Scientists in Mary Baker Eddy's time, reading these quotations by Alfred Farlow, not only in newspapers but in an official Christian Science magazine (Christian Science Sentinel), would have viewed them as "milk before meat" and evasions? I can say that all the Christian Scientists living today that I've shared them with have said they are excellent explanations of what Christian Science teaches about matter. In fact, one Christian Science teacher (CSB) told me that she shared them with the class she taught last summer.

Sorry, I used one of my other screen names for the above.