Heartfelt Interfaith Ministries

1.      God is infinite; humans are finite. Humans are not equipped to understand the Infinite.

Human beingsare physical creatures. We see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. Thesefive senses are our means of interaction. This is what allows us toreact to the world around us in a way that we remember, analyze andutilize for our survival. Our brains, part of our physical makeup, arethe analytical center for the processing of that constant influx ofdata and certain response are more or less preprogrammed to allow usshortcuts in dealing with common situations, such as ‘Finger on burningcandle, move NOW to avoid damage!’ So we jerk our hand back. Thatprocess is generally shortened to something like: “Ow!”

            Humanstake basic physical data, re-conceptualize it and create additionaltheories that may or may not be valid in a real world sense. We testthose theories and attempt to prove or disprove them and utilize theones that work best for us. It’s what we do.

            So what does this have to do with an ‘Infinite God’?

            Theidea of a God is one that goes back so far in our collective historythat we do not know when it began. Anthropologists often postulate thatthe original deities were spirits of nature such as water, fire,weather and animals whose characteristics were admired or useful insome way. We really don’t know how it got started, although that is alogical guess. These things had physical influence on the world ourancestors knew but were often out of their control.

Myown guess is that the original idea went something like: “it’s biggerthan me and does things I don’t understand, so it must be powerful;maybe I can get it to help, somehow.” And the idea of appeasement andbribing the spirits evolved into worship: “I did something you like,Spirit, so now you can do something for me; make the deer plentiful forthe hunters so we don’t go hungry.” It is a spiritual concept, butfirmly based in the physical world.

Afew millennia go by and somebody comes up with the economical idea oflumping all the spirits and deities under one name, just with a lotmore responsibilities. Thus we have Monotheism. It’s practical, too:you only have to build one temple, even though there might be angelsand ghosts lending the big spirit a hand. The bribes to the spirit havebecome formalized, so as to maintain the relationship: “See, Spirit?We’re all doing the things you like, so don’t be mad at us. Give usgood stuff, and you can go do bad things to that other tribe, ourcompetitors, who do things differently.” Thus is born ritual, dogma andintolerance from a fear of uncontrollable forces.

Italso is still a small, physical-based god, one that is devoted to thewell-being of a tribe, a city, a nation or one planet. Even after somany hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, our gods are stilllimited to the physical world. Because of the limitations of our ownphysicality, of the basic processing equipment of our brains andsenses, our gods are only as large as we can handle. Zeus and Jehovah had much in common, even in their iconography. Mary Magdaleneand Astarte the sex-and-war Goddess have more in common than mostpeople would think. They are all deities of the physical world.

These are not true deities.

            Atrue Deity is beyond our description, because it is beyond the words.The words are what we need, but they can only hold the concepts we putinto them, not what those concepts actually are. The Tao te ching saidit best: “TheTao (way) that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.”

            Describethe ocean. To a small child, it is big, wet, wavy, moving, warm orcold, depending on where he has seen it. To an Ichthyologist, it is ahabitat; to a sailor it is his highway. To an Admiral it isbattleground. To a chemist it is a saline suspension. All of those andmore, yet it is all ocean.

            In short, the reality of God is beyond our comprehension, because the very tools we use cannot recognize it.  That is Deity. That is God. That is the All. It is beyond perception or bribery.

Apparently I did it again. I am so sorry there was no update for June.

During June and July, we have been discussing the soul. What is it? Why do we need one? Why is it important? Are we the only creatures on Earth with a soul?

We are still dealing with general definitions, so if you have more specific ideas, please come and share them. If you can't think of any more specific ideas, please come and share what you know. I am sure that it is different than what we have already discussed.

We have discovered that the soul is something both physical and beyond being physical. Some of us can see them, but not all. We hold them as an important part of ourselves, since this is the part that is immortal, and goes on either to heaven or to the next life. And, other creatures may have a soul, although not the same type of soul we have.

As of this moment, we are planning to continue this discussion at our August 29th meeting.

Please come and join us.

I am so sorry folks, I really thought that I had posted a summary of what had gone on during April's meeting. I guess I am slipping a bit here.

During April's meeting, we discussed Rev. Zita's list of Aphorisms for Heretics. It contains such thoughts as People have sex, it is natural, deal with it maturely and all religions are equally right and equally wrong. The list is about 41 points long, and we will try to get it published in the future. It was a great meeting with some interesting and amusing thoughts brought up. I know that we plan on discussing this list in the future.

During May's meeting we discussed who or what has a soul. It was started from a joke email where a Catholic church and some other church were having a sign war, which was started when the Catholics stated that "all dogs go to heaven" and escalated from there to "all rocks go to heaven." This got us thinking about what has a soul and what does not. In turn that got us thinking why souls are so important to us.

That last thought lead us to getting assigned homework from Rev. Zita. We are all to research what one of the religions thinks of the soul. Who has one? Why is it important? You know, all the dirty details. Then we are going to discuss our findings and see how well they agree with our own.

Hope to see you on June 27th, and don't forget to bring your homework with you.

We had announced last month that we were going to discuss heresy and whether or not it still applied today, but due to technical issues, that did not happen.  So that is slated for our April discussion instead.

We did have a discussion group inspite of our technical problems, and that was about the mid-March news article announcing the Pope's statement on the use of condoms in Africa to fight the AIDS crisis there. (Read the article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/pope-africa-condoms-aids) The inflamitory statements sparked a lively discussion about how religion and believes can be misused to control us and how we are responsible for our own spiritual growth, not an institution or figurehead of that institution.

During that meeting we also decided to keep our meetings set for the last Saturday of every month. This is hoping that by keeping our schedule consistant, it makes it easier for you all to plan and be able to join us. April's date is the 25th at 10:00 am.

We like to thank our supporters every month, and that is you who have decided to attend. More specifically we would like to thank L'aura, who willingly donates her space to us every month.

Hi all, now that we have our first meeting done and the second one scheduled, we are ready to post what happened last month.

Our first accomplishment was to set up some basic rules for all of us to follow, just so we can keep the peace in the group.

1. No Proselytizing

We are a group based on discussion and sharing. Attempting to convert others to your religion or faith will not be tolerated.

2. No Name Calling.

We are not kids anymore, and calling names will not be tolerated. Additionally, saying "you are a jerk" and "I think you are a jerk" is the same thing.

3. No Bullying.

Yelling, intimidating, or just being plain rude can not be tolerated if the group is to survive. Please respect others and their ideas.

4. No Political Campaigning

While religion and politics sometimes go hand in hand, and discussing what is happening in the world around us may not be aviodable, campaigning for your favorite leader is not acceptable.

Now that is out of the way, we also discussed what is God and how did God come to be. If you have any input there, please bring it up at our next meeting, which will be happening about once a month.

Next meeting will be on March 28, 2009 at Kindred Spirit Books. Please see our home page for more information.

Questions or Comments? Please use the Contact Us Page.

In our excitement to get the word out that we are starting to meet, we put the wrong date out to you. The date of our first meeting is actually Saturday February 14, 2009.

I actually think that having our first meeting on Valentine's Day is appropriate, since we are Heartfelt ministries.  Maybe a bit of something or someone is stepping in on our behalf....maybe a blessing or sign of something good to come. I guess time wil tell.

Thanks for your patience and understanding the corrected date. We hope to see you there.

Hello and welcome to Heartfelt Interfaith Ministries. We are happy that you decided to visit.

If you are unable to attend our meetings, this is the place to come and learn what happened. After every meeting, this page will be updated with all that happened there. This is to be sure to keep you in the loop, so you'll know what to expect the next time.

We are so excited to announce our first meeting which will be on February 15, 2009 at 10:00 am at Kindred Spirit Books in downtown Stevens Point. We hope that you can make it. We plan on introducing ourselves and letting everyone who wants to help us design the format for future meetings. We would love to see you there!

We also want to put out a hardy Thank You to L'aura, Kindred Spirit Books owner. She has generously allowed us to meet at her store. Please stop in when you get a chance and support Kindred Spirit Books, as they have supported us.

If you would like more information, please use the Contact Us page, and not call Kindred Spirit Books.

Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you in a few weeks.