December 8th

We never got far in reading about Alan Watts and Zen as each controversial description of man's alienation led to a discussion on whether we agreed or not. To start us off I quoted the message on a display board outside of the church in Salisbury Road Totton. "Man is born with an emptiness inside that only God can fill" I agree with the statement except that God is a word that is interpreted by every religion and belief in many different ways.

November

We first of all read up and discussed an ordained minister's confession that he believed Christ was more of a Taoist and it was Paul who drew up the belief that salvation came from believing in Jesus Christ as the saviour. We then went on to look into Taoism.

There was no meeting in October - next month we will look at Lao Tzu's Taoism

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation.
Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me,
strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.
- Wernher von Braun

If you would like to join us email Bill

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We discussed the philosophy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Cosmic Plenum: Teilhard's Gnosis: Cosmogenesis
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest-theologian and a distinguished geologist-paleontologist, who was born in France in 1881 and died in New York City in 1955. Following teaching posts in Paris and Cairo, he was assigned to China for many years. In China, Teilhard became imbued with a vision of working to build the future.

By the future he meant more than the building up of the physical world; he envisaged the irreversible ascent, through man's collective efforts materially and mentally, to reach what he called the Omega Point

August meeting

Mike joined us this month making seven in all as Pat is in the USA. We reviewed topics covered over the last sessions, Ancient philosophy, Descartes, and Friedrich Nietzsche. We then examined Buddhism before moving on to Zen.

July meeting

We discussed the perennial philosophy as truth self evident and beyond dogma that occurs throughout history. We then went on to look at Nietzsche's ideas the complete antithesis. Nietzsche believed in nothing except the self in time and his loathing of those who believed in the timeless being. Decided very quickly not for us no wonder he went mad,
Next month we tackle Zen.

June meeting

For this month we looked at Gnosis and the esoteric teachings in most world religions. We then read part of the "In tune with the infinite" The author Ralph Waldo Trine appears to see the world as the kingdom of God in his book. Where God is both transcendent and immanent.

Group meet for the first time.

Philosophy.
For introduction we learned that apart from having a successful marriage to give an extra 5 years of life a belief in a philosophy was the next best thing.
Also it enables us to think clearly as this illustration shows.
To counter the argument that killing is always wrong and that therefore capital punishment is just legalised murder. Point out that if the person putting this idea forward can't see that there is a qualitative difference between killing for greed or lust or out of anger or malice and killing out of punishment by a duly appointed legal Authority then by their argument imprisonment should be regarded as legalised kidnapping and fines, legalised theft!

We then discussed metaphysics before going on to our own ideas and beliefs.
Next month Nietzsche or perhaps discuss the book by the American transcendentalist "In tune with the infinite"