Chaplain to Nothing:But it is on a university campus he feels most comfortable.
h/t Frank
24 Replies to “What’s The Opposite of Diversity?”
A chaplain who doesn’t believe in religion? That sounds just like a political officer in the old Soviet Union, there to provide non-religious guidance…
Sounds more like a guidance counsellor than a chaplain.
Or maybe he’s a pagan chaplain.
Seems like a waste of office space.
Is spirituality without belief just a lesson in self indulgence?
“This is where I belong,”
I always felt that way. Interesting courses, lots of girls, drink and never get up early.
More seriously, i find it odd how he can drawn such a bold line between beliefs and spirituality, as if the two are mutually exclusive. I suspect it’s part of his niche market that he pitched to get the job.
Probably not important, but what’s with the all black outfit?
Yes.
As one of the nones the last time I checked organized religion didn’t have a monopoly on God.
‘Education’ budgets really need to be slashed.
What’s the point in having a chaplain at a University?
It’s like having a barber at a bald-person’s convention.
Agree.
This is so typical of modern, multi-cultural universities. “Spirituality is more about values then about beliefs” Values are just justification to let you do what you want to do or as my dictionary puts it, “attributed or relative worth, merit or usefulness.” Certainly doesn’t sound like there is anything spiritual about this definition of a value.
This joker is just a ‘if it feels good just do it guidance counsellor’.
If universities got rid of all of these useless positions not to mention many of the useless programs then university might become more affordable again.
I disagree with the naysayers. I am an agnostic and have been my whole adult life … and wasn’t much of anything before that.
I like this guy’s thinking about spirituality.
There are few people who visit SDA who are not keenly interested in humanity and what is right vs. the pap and glop forced upon us in the media about liberalism and the environment. I’d suggest there is a high level of spirituality here. The difference between US and THEM is that we are free thinkers and get it. We get the bullshit and hype.
I am an avid photographer, fisherman, outdoorsy guy and a keen environmentalist…but not like Suzuki, et al. I deplore all the bullshit about climate change and AGW. My feelings are toward doing what is right for humanity and the environment. And I’d bet five bucks a lot of folks here feel the same way about religion and the environment and their fellow human beings. We do not need false gods and idols to worship. Lots of spiritual folks at SDA.
End of sermon. ☺ ☺
CAS
Ah, the astounding arrogance of these guys.
“The big change in his life came roughly 20 years ago when he saw reports of the genocide taking place in Rwanda.
“There was something not quite right here with my faith,” he remembers thinking. “How could there be a heavenly Father that allows women and children to be slaughtered in the pews of a church?”
Maybe God thinks we’re big enough to handle it, you wanker. Maybe God, having created the whole fritzing universe and humans too, knows something you don’t.
And here’s a thought, maybe you have to accept that you just don’t know how it all works and aren’t ever going to. Maybe humans beholding the World are like flatworms beholding a 1957 Chevy show car. Your average flatworm is going to miss a lot of the nuance, if you get what I’m saying.
If this is what passes for a Chaplain these days, it would be better to skip the whole thing IMHO.
That’s all well and good, Clive, but what does any of that have to do with spirituality oitavrdr a chaplain?
The hard-core religious faction on this site is so incredibly hypocritical! You realize that this post is the definition of irony — a title implying that universities are intolerant of diversity, followed by a bunch of comments going off on someone who’s “different” from them, even though his belief, positions, etc., have literally NO effect on you!
You can look at a guy talking about a massacre in Rwanda, and call him “arrogant” for questioning your God’s motives (someone above said this). In the same instant, you could look at a pair of homosexual men doing things significantly less damaging than, say, rape & murder, and say with complete conviction that they’re going against God’s will. Well, smartest-people-in-the-room, it’s either one or the other.
Maybe I’ll get filtered for this, but for Pete’s sake, start exercising that part of your brains that’s atrophied from “faith in god” and think about what you’re saying.
If this kind of logic is representative of the “conservative” segment of Canadian society, it’s about time that I step off.
His salary is covered by all those tuition fees, no?
“There was something not quite right here with my faith,” he remembers thinking. “How could there be a heavenly Father that allows women and children to be slaughtered in the pews of a church?”
Yeah, The Problem of Evil has been around a while, but if he’s got a Masters of Divinity I can’t help but think that he’s got to have come across a few of the several hundred apologetics that have been written on the topic by now.
The problem isn’t that he’s not religious, it’s that he’s not a very good chaplain.
Having a chaplain that is not religious is as useful as a president that can’t lead… oh wait… frack!
Seriously, you might as well call him a dentist or social worker.
Hey whatever, but me thinks that without …. Oh forget it. His counsel will probably be about a substantive as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo4OnQpwjkc
Probably about as deep as it gets.
Chaplain to nothing is right.
Chaplain of none.
Romans Chapter 3
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
God does not care about opinions on his status. Christ showed us the way. we all have free choice in whether or not we follow Him.
In his model of reality, are his “values” something that he “believes”? He makes a distinction between “beliefs” and “values” which does not exist in the mind. If you don’t believe in your so-called values, then they aren’t your values.
… and speaking just as a female, my intuition makes me wonder if a man in his sixties who visually presents himself as an aged boy hipster will be the type who, if I came to him for “spiritual” counselling, might just ask me out for dinner, and make a move on me, or perhaps try a grope in the office. Based on what he says, his “morality” may be relative, and situational, and convenient to his “values”.
Daniel Ream said: “The problem isn’t that he’s not religious, it’s that he’s not a very good chaplain.”
Indeed. An excellent summation. Wish I had thought of it. 🙂
RW in Big C said: “You can look at a guy talking about a massacre in Rwanda, and call him “arrogant” for questioning your God’s motives (someone above said this). In the same instant, you could look at a pair of homosexual men doing things significantly less damaging than, say, rape & murder, and say with complete conviction that they’re going against God’s will.”
Sir, I defy you to find any instance on Small Dead Animals on my personal blog The Phantom Soapbox, or any other place I’ve ever commented on the Internet, where I have said any such thing about homosexuals. Ever. Or indeed anywhere that I’ve claimed any knowledge of God’s Will in general.
After you fail to find any such instance, consider re-reading my comment using normal reading comprehension skills. A Chaplain who questions the existence and motives of God based on the Evil of Men is a poor fool of a Chaplain indeed.
Evil lurks in the hearts of Men. Chaplains exist to fight it, not to f- around pretending it’s God’s fault. Cowboy up.
A chaplain who doesn’t believe in religion? That sounds just like a political officer in the old Soviet Union, there to provide non-religious guidance…
Sounds more like a guidance counsellor than a chaplain.
Or maybe he’s a pagan chaplain.
Seems like a waste of office space.
Is spirituality without belief just a lesson in self indulgence?
“This is where I belong,”
I always felt that way. Interesting courses, lots of girls, drink and never get up early.
More seriously, i find it odd how he can drawn such a bold line between beliefs and spirituality, as if the two are mutually exclusive. I suspect it’s part of his niche market that he pitched to get the job.
Probably not important, but what’s with the all black outfit?
Yes.
As one of the nones the last time I checked organized religion didn’t have a monopoly on God.
‘Education’ budgets really need to be slashed.
What’s the point in having a chaplain at a University?
It’s like having a barber at a bald-person’s convention.
Agree.
This is so typical of modern, multi-cultural universities. “Spirituality is more about values then about beliefs” Values are just justification to let you do what you want to do or as my dictionary puts it, “attributed or relative worth, merit or usefulness.” Certainly doesn’t sound like there is anything spiritual about this definition of a value.
This joker is just a ‘if it feels good just do it guidance counsellor’.
If universities got rid of all of these useless positions not to mention many of the useless programs then university might become more affordable again.
I disagree with the naysayers. I am an agnostic and have been my whole adult life … and wasn’t much of anything before that.
I like this guy’s thinking about spirituality.
There are few people who visit SDA who are not keenly interested in humanity and what is right vs. the pap and glop forced upon us in the media about liberalism and the environment. I’d suggest there is a high level of spirituality here. The difference between US and THEM is that we are free thinkers and get it. We get the bullshit and hype.
I am an avid photographer, fisherman, outdoorsy guy and a keen environmentalist…but not like Suzuki, et al. I deplore all the bullshit about climate change and AGW. My feelings are toward doing what is right for humanity and the environment. And I’d bet five bucks a lot of folks here feel the same way about religion and the environment and their fellow human beings. We do not need false gods and idols to worship.
Lots of spiritual folks at SDA.
End of sermon. ☺ ☺
CAS
Ah, the astounding arrogance of these guys.
“The big change in his life came roughly 20 years ago when he saw reports of the genocide taking place in Rwanda.
“There was something not quite right here with my faith,” he remembers thinking. “How could there be a heavenly Father that allows women and children to be slaughtered in the pews of a church?”
Maybe God thinks we’re big enough to handle it, you wanker. Maybe God, having created the whole fritzing universe and humans too, knows something you don’t.
And here’s a thought, maybe you have to accept that you just don’t know how it all works and aren’t ever going to. Maybe humans beholding the World are like flatworms beholding a 1957 Chevy show car. Your average flatworm is going to miss a lot of the nuance, if you get what I’m saying.
If this is what passes for a Chaplain these days, it would be better to skip the whole thing IMHO.
That’s all well and good, Clive, but what does any of that have to do with spirituality oitavrdr a chaplain?
The hard-core religious faction on this site is so incredibly hypocritical! You realize that this post is the definition of irony — a title implying that universities are intolerant of diversity, followed by a bunch of comments going off on someone who’s “different” from them, even though his belief, positions, etc., have literally NO effect on you!
You can look at a guy talking about a massacre in Rwanda, and call him “arrogant” for questioning your God’s motives (someone above said this). In the same instant, you could look at a pair of homosexual men doing things significantly less damaging than, say, rape & murder, and say with complete conviction that they’re going against God’s will. Well, smartest-people-in-the-room, it’s either one or the other.
Maybe I’ll get filtered for this, but for Pete’s sake, start exercising that part of your brains that’s atrophied from “faith in god” and think about what you’re saying.
If this kind of logic is representative of the “conservative” segment of Canadian society, it’s about time that I step off.
His salary is covered by all those tuition fees, no?
“There was something not quite right here with my faith,” he remembers thinking. “How could there be a heavenly Father that allows women and children to be slaughtered in the pews of a church?”
Yeah, The Problem of Evil has been around a while, but if he’s got a Masters of Divinity I can’t help but think that he’s got to have come across a few of the several hundred apologetics that have been written on the topic by now.
The problem isn’t that he’s not religious, it’s that he’s not a very good chaplain.
Having a chaplain that is not religious is as useful as a president that can’t lead… oh wait… frack!
Seriously, you might as well call him a dentist or social worker.
Hey whatever, but me thinks that without …. Oh forget it. His counsel will probably be about a substantive as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo4OnQpwjkc
Probably about as deep as it gets.
Chaplain to nothing is right.
Chaplain of none.
Romans Chapter 3
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
God does not care about opinions on his status. Christ showed us the way. we all have free choice in whether or not we follow Him.
In his model of reality, are his “values” something that he “believes”? He makes a distinction between “beliefs” and “values” which does not exist in the mind. If you don’t believe in your so-called values, then they aren’t your values.
… and speaking just as a female, my intuition makes me wonder if a man in his sixties who visually presents himself as an aged boy hipster will be the type who, if I came to him for “spiritual” counselling, might just ask me out for dinner, and make a move on me, or perhaps try a grope in the office. Based on what he says, his “morality” may be relative, and situational, and convenient to his “values”.
Daniel Ream said: “The problem isn’t that he’s not religious, it’s that he’s not a very good chaplain.”
Indeed. An excellent summation. Wish I had thought of it. 🙂
RW in Big C said: “You can look at a guy talking about a massacre in Rwanda, and call him “arrogant” for questioning your God’s motives (someone above said this). In the same instant, you could look at a pair of homosexual men doing things significantly less damaging than, say, rape & murder, and say with complete conviction that they’re going against God’s will.”
Sir, I defy you to find any instance on Small Dead Animals on my personal blog The Phantom Soapbox, or any other place I’ve ever commented on the Internet, where I have said any such thing about homosexuals. Ever. Or indeed anywhere that I’ve claimed any knowledge of God’s Will in general.
After you fail to find any such instance, consider re-reading my comment using normal reading comprehension skills. A Chaplain who questions the existence and motives of God based on the Evil of Men is a poor fool of a Chaplain indeed.
Evil lurks in the hearts of Men. Chaplains exist to fight it, not to f- around pretending it’s God’s fault. Cowboy up.