What's Wrong With A Pastor of Force Practice

As I understand it The Force is a uniting energy flow, it touches and brings together all and all beliefs, even atheism; which could be looked at as the always needed skeptical. scientific view point. I'm not sure if we should, or shouldn't have, a Pastor of Force Practice; but if we would decide to; that person needs to have a decent understanding of the major beliefs. Prayer, meditation, spellcraft. energy work, and etc would all need to be considered equally valid for this position to work. In some ways this could be a good thing, but it is something that we would need to be careful with.

steamboat28 wrote: "Force Practice" is the sum total of all the ways that we, at the Temple, view the Force, from philosophically to mystically. I see no problem with the title. I see people looking for things to get upset about.

If we agree that is what it is we've come full circle to just talking about The Pastor. One issue is using Pastor for positions that are not commonly understood to have the title of Pastor.

Clergy, please see https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/Ministers-Corner/121693-pastor-proper-use-of-title#326410

We read it, John. And honestly, it's not as well-informed a post as it could be. Many denominations use a variation of pastor as a general title for anyone that is the head of a division. We can get into the etymology, too, if you'd like, since Words Mean Things™, but I'll save that lecture for another day.

Bottom line: I think this is either a massive misunderstanding or an intentional roadblock.

I’ve already voiced my opinion on this in the announcement thread. I take no issue whatsoever in having discussion groups on any kind of belief or faith - syncretism is an important factor within our faith and I’m willling to bet that many members here only chose to come because of that. We also rightfully pride ourselves for being an especially open and diverse community.

I firmly believe that creating official positions to support individual external faiths, pseudo sciences and the like actually undermines these basic cornerstones of our community here. Favoring one belief over others, introducing dubious attempts to define whose individual definition is part of the learning process of our congregation, introducing the esoteric (officialy sanctioned by the Synod) will only have negative outcomes. It alienates TotJO members, it undermines our (former?) core beliefs and it pushes us into the direction of fanboyism, sending out a public message saying “hey, we’ve now started exploring the possibility that the Force exists in exactly the way it’s depicted in the movies”, taking away credibility from our faith.

My appeal to the powers that be: please don’t do it.

I wouldn't want people to feel held back or excluded because of the risk of being seen as something so much either, but if it can be avoided then it should be. Which makes me wonder, is meditation a Force practise? Is prayer a Force practise? I'd say yes.
And I'd probably argue that all activity is a Force practise, the difference is the focus on it or not... and so from what I've read, its just a role to organize activities and interests in the connecting to of the Force, rather then the talking about it (or as seems most common, of ourselves).

You know something good inevitably follows when an address comes in this form:

With all due respect, steam, brother, friend... it would appear the misunderstanding comes on your part here, and that may well have been the intention of whoever suggested the position under scrutiny here. Of course a "Pastor of Force Practice" sounds like just the right thing for TOTJO to have. The point is, that the description paints a picture well more contentious than that. If eventually the name would serve to generalize the purpose, maybe that would turn out just fine, but as it stands now, it is effectively a Pastor of Remote Healing and very little magical woo-woo beyond that. The name doesn't much change what the thing itself is. Whether it was chosen so on purpose or not, what it does is lower some of our guard, undermine some of our vigilance against things of it's nature. It is, as Br. John put it, "misleading", and it wouldn't need to be, if there was no objection to be had against what is hidden behind the name. Those objections, of course, have thus far been a focus of this thread, too.

What do y'all think about Assistant Pastor - Jedi Practices and Applications?

Br. John wrote: What do y'all think about Assistant Pastor - Jedi Practices and Applications?

nothing - as the problem lies elsewhere. Creating an official function for Reiki (or any other belief, non-rational hobby etc.) is just not right in my opinion. This place has been a refuge for reason. Why would we want to turn this into a place of fiction now all of a sudden. Hasn't the essence of this site been about findig once's own path through reasoning and thinking? Haven't we been making fun of other sites that were more about fan fiction than a real belief? Telekinesis, remote healing, lineages, The Force as depicted in the movies - that's just doesn't go together with that.

Maybe we should have a vote and decide on whether we'll henceforward be a fan fiction and cosplay site rather than an actual, independent faith?

Again, I have absolutely zero issue with those believing in Reiki, the healing powers of prayer, or any other personal view on things, but creating official functions for those is just going to far. We've had a proven and well accepted system of interest groups here for all things that aren't part of the core ideas represented by TotJO Jediism. Why start favouring external beliefs over our own core values, simply because some community members are attracted to them?


Cyan


ps: if we end up starting with Reiki now, I'd suggest we create an Assistant Paster for real Lightsaber Studies as well. And one for Goat Admiration and Research, one for Research into the Intrinsic Healing Powers of Pizza and another one for Studying Judas as a potential Ally to Qui-Gon Jin.

I see nothing wrong with it. We need to start finding, creating, and practising Jedi stuff, or else we're just Taoists and Jedi robes. Just so long as its just not existing things such as Reiki in new clothes. If Jediism is to be its own thing, it needs to branch out and start becoming as such.

ps: if we end up starting with Reiki now, I'd suggest we create an Assistant Paster for real Lightsaber Studies as well.

I call dibs! c:<

Arisaig wrote: I see nothing wrong with it. We need to start finding, creating, and practising Jedi stuff, or else we're just Taoists and Jedi robes. Just so long as its just not existing things such as Reiki in new clothes. If Jediism is to be its own thing, it needs to branch out and start becoming as such.

How do we "need" to do that? What do you mean by practising "Jedi Stuff"? Like in the movies? If that's what you mean, again, let's turn this into a cosplay site, but let's do it officially.

What sets "us" apart from Taoists is the emphasis on contemporary myths and syncretism. We're already a very open faith, why now bury the core from which it all sprang? Nobody is keeping anyone from exploring Reiki here - that's the beauty of this faith. How branching out will help us define ourselves, however, beats me - if anything, it'll rip the community and with it the entire faith apart.

What's wrong with the system we've had before?