Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Faith Beyond Belief

Home
New Visions

2013-04-26T11:03:05-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What does God Really Look Like? – Time for A New Vision

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 11:03 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

Love as a symbol for the Ultimate Mystery requires faith that a connecting fabric stretches over all the universe, and trust that the inherent nature of that fabric is good...Contemplating Love as the Ultimate Reality forces us to stretch beyond the limits of our human reasoning skills, and admit to possibilities we will never be able to fully grasp. Read more

spiritual development

2013-04-05T17:25:37-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My Defining Moment Led to this Patheos Blog – and My Book.

Last updated on: April 5, 2013 at 5:25 pm By Margaret Placentra Johnston

The fearsome, yet somehow oddly thrilling words jumped right off the page, crept stealthily past the obviously snoozing hogwash detector in my brain, and spoke directly to my heart: “Stage IV men and women will enter into religion in order to approach mystery…” I grasped the book a bit more tightly, reread the words, then threw it down. A prickly sensation worked its way up my spine. Read more

Uncategorized

faith

M Scott Peck

spiritual development

Spiritual stages

2013-04-03T23:12:59-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why I am a Freelance Spiritual Seeker

Last updated on: April 3, 2013 at 11:12 pm By Margaret Placentra Johnston

The bigger picture story is that humans seem to share a universal need to connect with something larger than themselves. It seems each individual religion was created by one group of people as their way to explain the universal human need for connection. Read more

2013-04-03T22:40:33-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

IS there an afterlife?

Last updated on: April 3, 2013 at 10:40 pm By Margaret Placentra Johnston

The more we learn about the belief systems of other cultures, the more we learn to recognize that each was created by humans to address a universal human need to connect with something greater – to transcend the self. …and in some cases to provide answers about the meaning of life. Read more

2013-03-02T14:10:57-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What Does Spiritual Progress Really Mean?

Last updated on: March 2, 2013 at 2:10 pm By Margaret Placentra Johnston

...attempts to govern our society based on biblical authority represent a regressive or immature form of spirituality. Read more

Spiritual Maturity

inclusiveness

progressive religion

spiritual development

spiritual maturity

unitive worldview

2013-02-13T07:29:07-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Transcending the Self – through Kite Flying?

Last updated on: February 13, 2013 at 7:29 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

If more people were connected at times to parts of the universe beyond their separate selves...they would care more about who is left out when certain religions claim superiority, and would care less about which religion was right. Read more

Spiritual Maturity

connection with the universe

2013-02-11T09:13:28-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Planned Parenthood Urges a More Spiritually Mature Conversation

Last updated on: February 11, 2013 at 9:13 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

For some reason people seem to be able to apply more sophisticated reasoning to less crucial issues - "Do I have a good boss or a bad boss?" But when it comes to our most compelling social, political and theological issues, these same people insist there are only two possibilities--yes or no--limiting their reasoning to the same simple binary logic computers use.[1] Read more

spiritual development

spirituality

2013-02-06T11:01:07-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Were the New Atheists Right?

Last updated on: February 6, 2013 at 11:01 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

Global communications are contributing to our realization of the universal truths brought to us in the holy books, and the religious stories told by other religions. Those of us willing to take the bird’s eye view global communications are granting us should noticing that all religions are localized expressions of a universal human need to form a story that gives meaning to life. It is evident that we now need...a bigger story. Read more

gloabl communications

New Atheists

religious belief

2013-01-30T11:02:28-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Problem of Knowing God

Last updated on: January 30, 2013 at 11:02 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

So the problem with assuming we know exactly who God is, and what “he” “wants,” is that it limits our understanding to that which our churches teach – and that God almost certainly excludes some of what is considered to be his own creation. When you think about it, this cannot really be. If we are to allow ourselves to fully explore the truth in an open and honest fashion, we must realize that God (or god) is something way beyond anything our limited human brains can understand. Admitting that we may not have the capacity to understand something so all-encompassing shows a much greater degree of humility, and brings us closer to the Truth. Read more

2013-01-19T11:22:38-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

What? “Teach” Spirituality in Schools?

Last updated on: January 19, 2013 at 11:22 am By Margaret Placentra Johnston

The need to address spiritual truth—that spirituality IS about way more than any given organized religion—and that we owe it to our children to encourage them to develop a broader, more authentic spirituality than what our holy books teach—is part of an ever-growing need in our society to embrace a “bigger” story. We need a story that encompasses both organized religion and open spirituality, one that can meld the rich rites and rituals of a given religious tradition with an open minded—and open hearted—welcoming of input from other sources of spiritual wisdom. Read more

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz