Law of One Religion?

[Steppingfeet]

Apparently I failed to convey my point, or you have misunderstood. There's nothing wrong with quoting Ra! I have quoted Ra numerous times! Presumably, we are studying the Material, right?

My point was in regards to taking a single quote out of context, or as a stand-alone idea, which can more easily lend itself to rigid dogma.

Ah, sorry if I misunderstood.

Regarding rigid dogma, I think elaborate formulations are just as susceptible to dogmatic interpretations as single quotes taken out of context.

You said: "so long as we recognize that reliance, and know that no source of information is infallible" and that, too, is part of m point: Isn't that a characteristic of fundamentalist religion, when people think that their source is infallible? So I'm wondering if some of our members think that way about the Law of One. I think some do.

I think the majority of readers of the Law of One who fall in love with this philosophy find Ra a more credible, reliable, and trustworthy source of information than most if not all other terrestrial sources of information. Which isn't to say that human beings cannot be equally reliable and trustworthy, they can. But if in the event one finds a human pure in heart, that human still lacks the utterly singular and wide perspective that Ra seems to possess.

Furthermore, single phrases, taken out of context, are sometimes considered infallible, so it's a double whammy.

This single phrase thing... it sounds like you have a single phrase (or two) in mind.

EDIT: Forgot that you said quote(s) on acceptance being one example of "taken out of context".

I wasn't referring to emulating the admirable traits of another person. I was referring to emulating another person not because we admire those particular traits, but because of who the person is. 

To illustrate: Emulating Mother Theresa's compassion because it's an admirable trait, vs wearing black robes because Mother Theresa wears black robes, not because we like to wear black robes, but simply because Mother Theresa is an authority, so if she does it, it must be good.

It's a subtle but important distinction.

Roger that. Well put, indeed an important distinction.

And I can imagine another specific example you might use to illustrate your point here.

Finally, you said for me to correct you if you're wrong, so here it is: You couldn't be more wrong. I don't how you got that out of what I said.    It has nothing to do with agreement on interpretation, and everything to do with taking single phrases out of context and building a dogma out of a fragment. Perhaps you haven't yet read all of the posts and missed post # 38, in which this exact thing was stated clearly, right on the heals of a slight difference in interpretation, which had absolutely no relevance at all to the point, and was thus not even an issue at all, in favor of reiterating the point.

It is possible that an individual can take a single statement out of context and build a dogma around it.
It is also possible that an individual can take books and books of information and build a dogma around them.

I was only saying that the issue could also, actually, be a difference in interpretation regarding the meaning and application of the culprit statement.

Person A interpreting it one way. Person B interpreting it another way. And Person A, not liking Person B's interpretation, accusing Person B of "taking it out of context" or being "rigidly dogmatic".

All above-described scenarios are possible. I suppose it would require examination of specific instances to determine what is happening in any given case.

I went back to the post you just linked to. In that post you wrote:

...which completely disregards the rest of the concepts offered by Ra, in favor of focusing on only one, and not even understanding what that one means anyway...this is akin to what the religious fundamentalists do.

Just a quick side comment about religious fundamentalist taking a quote out of context, that is, focusing on one idea and excluding all the others...

If a student of religious scripture took the whole religion into account when forming their conclusion, it might end up a very confused conclusion. There is no unity or internal consistency within any religious work of which I'm aware. (Note: I am not a scholar of religious work. Endnote.)

Point being: I think that to form a coherent vision from religious study necessarily includes either:

a) Selective reading. That is, ignoring/discarding the contradictory or oppositely polarized information.

b) Learning to creatively interpret the entire scripture through one particular lens. For instance, Paramahansa Yogananda wrote a passage-by-passage interpretation of the New Testament that envisions the New Testament through his worldview.