Didn't we all feel, when this topic first came up here, a kind of
collective apprehension amongst the early contributors: "Will we really be
able to do this? Will this really not degenerate to -- well, whatever it
is these things often degenerate to?"
And shouldn't we be pleased with ourselves and each other that we *have*
in fact conducted an inquiry -- or at least the beginnings of an inquiry
-- into how Christianity (and religious practice and thought generally)
might relate (or, as in Johanna's experience, *fail* to relate) to some of
the other topics central to this ongoing discussion?
This thread is already remarkable for the *breadth* of the views it has
evoked and encompassed. If the testimony of contributors such as John
Fullerton, Donald Kerr, and others lies at one end of that range,
Johanna's surely lies at the other: not only does she not see any positive
relationship, she *does* see contradiction or inconsistency between
religion and Systems Thinking.
Well, for my part, I incline towards the hypothesis of harmony rather than
discord. In other words, Yes, I think there are common elements in
religious thought and in Systems Thinking. Johanna doesn't find any in
some common forms of religious practice (conduits and telephone circuits)
and neither do I. But neither do Fullerton and Kerr, as far as I know.
Hadn't we best be looking at the mythologies, the conceptual systems?
Sometime last year there was a longish thread about stories and parables.
There's another on stories just getting under way now. Parables and
stories play a role in religions that is I believe closely analogous
to Johanna's "Mental Models" in Systems Thinking.
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen jamzen@world.std.com
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
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