Kindest Regards, all!

Recently, I had an experience that shook me, and I am having trouble dealing with it. I am hoping that by writing this out, I can come to grips with it.

To begin, there was a lady who volunteered until recently down the hall from where I work in the hospital, at the chemo clinic of the cancer ward. She gave of her time, freely and with no pay, for several hours a day throughout the week.

Now, she was not what one would call pretty. In fact, she disguised her looks under what I consider to be way too much makeup, an attempt I believe to cover many years of hard life. She seldom smiled, I think now because people rarely smiled at her, if they even glanced her way. Most people ignored her presence.

I treated her as I would any other person, I greeted her as she came by, and we would exchange brief smiles. I did not go out of my way for her, and she asked nothing of me. Had she done so, I would have assisted in whatever way I could as a part of my job. My point being, I treated her as I would anybody else, nothing special and nothing rude. This, I was taught growing up, is called “common human decency,” which is properly extended to anybody.

I heard that her house recently burned, and she lost nearly everything she owned. And while I heard this story being told, included with it were rumors that she fell asleep with a cigarette, some even implying that it must have been a marijuana cigarette. These people did not know, they were speculating, but with the gossipy reassurance that it must be true, that this woman somehow deserved to lose her house and belongings. And I must admit, for a brief moment until I regained my senses, I believed them.

She returned the other day to say goodbye, the only conversation we ever had. She made a point of coming up to me personally, smiled and told me briefly about what had happened, and that she was leaving, I presume to stay with family somewhere out of state. And then she hugged me and kissed my neck. She didn’t do this to anybody else there where I was at. She turned and left, and I suppose I will never see her again.

We part company with people we know all the time. Partings can be hard, and even sad. What makes this one difficult for me is that I didn’t know this woman, I don’t even know her name, and yet I made such an impression on her she felt the need to search me out to say goodbye. And all I ever did was grant her the common human decency we all deserve. If that little can mean so much, how little she must have had!

When we have, whether money or position or material possessions, we lose track of how significant the little things can be. When we are in want, the little things can make such a difference! And what tears me up the most, is that this woman who had nothing, and yet was so giving, and still she received so little from anybody else, only rumors and gossip. I am still struggling with this gross lack of “Christian charity” from others. That otherwise “good” people, at least in our everyday estimation, could be so cruel towards such a giving person. Why? Because she was so difficult to look at, so un-beautiful? She certainly did nothing to cause anybody harm, indeed, she was there to help in whatever way she could.

I am not sure what it is I am trying to say. I don’t even know if writing this will even make a difference in how I feel, but I sense a deep hurt that I cannot reach or describe, and that had I only known, perhaps I could have made a difference. If I had only made a little more effort, had taken a little more time to get to know her, that somehow things might have been a bit different, that life might have been a bit more pleasant for her, at least in the time she spent so selflessly giving of herself to others. So many of whom ignored her very presence.

I suppose it serves to show that true beauty lies far beyond what the naked eye can see. What we see as beautiful can in reality be ugly, and what we see as ugly may hold hidden beauty. And that it is well worth our effort to try to see beyond what our eyes and hearts imagine as truth.

(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by juantoo3, Feb 20, 2005)

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Quran 5:118

“I said nothing to them except that which Thou didst command me — ‘Worship Allah, my Lord, and your Lord.’ And I was a witness over them as long as I remained among them, but since Thou didst cause me to die( tawaffaitani,)Thou hast been the Watcher over them; and Thou art Witness over all things. Therefore, Allah has stated that Hazrat Isa(as) has died because in these two places there is no mention of night, which would change the definition to sleep. About both of these verses, we find primary Islamic sources attesting to the fact that the verb tawaffa refers to death.”

(Discussion in ‘Islam‘ started by Ijaz Ahmad Ahmadi, Feb 27, 2022)

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I believe Christ is who He says He is, He’s my foundation. I had to the view the teachings through an intrinsic way, Gnosticism; more or less. Along with brutal shadow work I didn’t know I was doing for 4 to 5 years of my life. I suppose I alchemized pertaining towards how I saw the world. And my perspective kept changing for those years, but I always kept finding solid ground. even when I lacked understanding and felt like I was falling. I became interested in all manner of spirituality. Been looking into Zoranstrianism, for reasons a few bible verses got me interested.

(Discussion in ‘Belief and Spirituality‘ started by Draco99 8/03/2022)

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I identify as a nontheistic panentheist unitic.

As in I don’t believe in any creator god, I see what I view as labeled G!d in many beliefs in everything and we in it. I enjoy the metaphysics of Unity and believe that G!d is principle…sort of/more than the TOE.

You can view me as agnostic as should I find out different I reserve the right to change my mind with new information.

What do you identify as?

 (Discussion in ‘Belief and Spirituality‘ started by wil, Feb 10, 2022)

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I am interested in knowing what your religion/faith’s End Goal is in regards to your physical demise (Death)?
I am an adherent of the Left Hand Path and my belief lies in the transference of my conscious awareness to my Greater Self/GodSelf and the individual Subjective Reality I am creating. For us, this is the form of Self-Deification spoken about with LHP Adherents.

What are your Beliefs?

(Discussion in ‘Comparative Studies‘ started by ‘Amir Alzzalam, Jan 17, 2022)

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I will proceed in 10 parts of my topic. please reply or comment after one part.
I – The Sign of Jonah
Now we proceed with our arguments from the Bible itself to show that Jesus did not die on the Cross. We read in the New Testament:

“And when the people were gathered thick together, he (Jesus) began to say, this is an evil generation: they seek a sign: and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man to this generation”. (Luke 11: 29, 30)

Again:

“But he answered and said unto them; an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign: and there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12: 39, 40)

Jesus Christ is said here to give a sign to the people of his own time as Jonah, the prophet, had given to the Ninevites? Now what was the sign given by Jonah to the Ninevites? The Bible says:

“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly. And said, l cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest, my voice”. (Jonah 1:17-2; 1,2)

According to this verse is the Bible, Jonah was swallowed up by a big fish where he remained three days and three nights and then came out alive from the belly of the fish. It was a sign given to the Ninevites. Jonah prayed to God for deliverance while in the belly of the fish. The Lord heard his prayer and Jonah came out alive. Jesus says that no sign shall be given to the evil and adulterous generation of his time except that of Jonah.

Now what is the resemblance between the two signs of Jonah and Jesus. It is nothing but going alive into the belly of the fish and the heart of the earth and coming out alive. Both Jonah and Jesus cried by reason of their respective afflictions and prayed to their Lord for deliverance. The prayers of both were heard. If Jesus did not enter the heart of the earth (sepulchre) alive, and come out alive, where is the resemblance of the two signs?

Jesus promised to show only one sign to the generation of his time, but even if that sign be not proved to be true, is there anything also to prove the truth of his claim to be a prophet? Jesus’s reference to the sign of Jonah simply means that he would not die on the cross. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that the swoon theory is not based on a wrong hypothesis.

(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by Ijaz Ahmad Ahmadi, Mar 3, 2022)

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I spend about an hour or more a day in meditation. I can see and experience many visual phenomena that can come from any part of worlds to places and locations around this world.

I do not know how many of you find thoughts about things, or how minds teach you the things you are trying to understand about your beliefs. When I close my eyes a whole other place starts to form around me as minds within many layers begin to teach me their thoughts.

I am basically starting this thread to explain something I see but don’t understand, that has been a constant visual for around 40 years.

As a child I would call for time and as I would do this I would see the silhouettes of people walking towards me and then move into this place of limbo waiting to become something again. 8 years ago I became something here inside of nothing here and the frequency of minds have increased a hundred fold. They no longer move past me but into me and then into my yourself or my mind.

This is not the problem though, the problem is the other things that are here the ones that can figure things out. As minds move back the silhouettes begin to show up and once in a while there will be someone there trying to figure me out these people seem to be who we are humans. Yesterday a man was moving through these yourselves and was shining a flashlight on me, if this was within nothing here he would not need a flashlight. This suggests that this is here somewhere, he seemed to be military or some kind of guard.

If this is here where would this be, the place would have to be able to hold tens of thousands if not millions of people, what place would be this big? This morning he showed me that they are taking things out of this place insects and studying them. Thoughts of evolution was prevalent also.

I just needed to write these thoughts down, didn’t want to side rail anyones threads.
Please move this thread wherever applicable.

powessy

(Discussion in ‘Belief and Spirituality‘ started by powessy, Feb 20, 2022)

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This Pentagram embodies the ratio phi, also known as the Golden Mean, and the Fibonacci Sequence. The Circle represents the mathematical order of the objective universe and the mastery over it of the Karcist (Black Maji). The pentagram represents the Principles of the Prince of Darkness in the role of Iblis, whose letters in Arabic surround the star points. The Pentagram does not touch the circle to represent the separation from the objective universe. The pentagram itself represents the Vitruvian Man only inverted now represents the Karcist’s antinomian nature against the objective universe. In the center is Iblis Šayṭān the archetypal separation of “I” from “Consciousness” independent of the Absolute.
_______________________________________
The Order of Iblis
Æ0N 0f IBLIS Šayṭān

(image)

(Discussion in ‘Left Hand Path‘ started by ‘Amir Alzzalam 24/02/2022)

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It’s too bad none of the mainline churches or the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches ever incorporated the best of modern theology that could have brought them into the 20th and now the 21st century.

The fundagelicals will continue to bite because they need the “certainty” that some people need. There is a group of “Neo-Cat” Catholics who have the same need, different flavor. They are reacting against the liberalization, liturgically and theologically, that took place in the Roman Catholic theology leading up to and after Vatican II and in Protestant theology even earlier.

But theologians of the ilk of Matthew Fox, Peter Kreeft, Edward Schillebeeckx, Bede Griffiths, Piet Schoonenberg, Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Bernhard Häring, Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Dietrich Bonhöffer, Rudolf Bultmann, Ruolph Otto, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Paul Tillich, and John MacQuarrie (my shining light) wrote their heads and hearts out.. Virtually all of the Roman Catholic theologians who dared veer off course have been silenced.

Virtually all of these theologians pre-dated Bishop Spong. His theology is largely reliant on their thought and writings.The French would call him《un grand vulgarisateur》but that does not translate to “a great vulgeriser.” No, in French, it’s a compliment. It means a person like John Shelby Spong. What John Spong did was to take all that esoteric, dense, and written-by- theologians-for-theologians writing and translate it into common parlance for ordinary people. He did it very well. What a gift.

But here’s the bad news. The writings of all those modern theologians and the accesibility afforded by writers like Spong have had virtually no effect on the life of either the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, or Protestant churches. Their liturgies, bible studies and sermons continue to use the language, doctrine, and thinking of the 18th century and before. And they are all, some slowly, some lickety-split, dying.

The dilemma is that there are just enough “give-us-the-old-myth” congregants and priests/ministers that au-courant priests and ministers don’t dare challenge the two-century-old paradigm and risk losing their jobs. In fact, most seminaries don’t dig deep enough into actual systematic or scriptural theology to intrigue seminarians to think deeper. In fact, in my own denomination, few applicants go to seminary. They go through an at-home diocese-by-diocese do-it-yourself training program.

Meanwhile, major swaths of the Baby Boomers, about two-thirds of Generation X, and virtually all those in Generations Y, Z and Alpha are gone, lost to the real world and unwilling to prop up the myth any longer.

What is sad is that folks like us have no place to go. I believe most people need community. The Unitarians and some UCC folks are good on community and theology but have no idea of the need for liturgy. Human beings also need silence, with contemporary society doing all it can to keep us talking and running. The non-program Quakers and Zensters have the silence down, but that’s all. I read a piece of light research recently that suggested that many Millenials and post Millenials are attracted to very high-church (smells and bells) liturgies. I’ve checked that out with a couple of Millenials who said that they liked the transcendent atmosphere Anglo-Catholic liturgy creates . . . as long as they don’t listen to the words.

It is time for a new kind of community and a new kind of “worship.” New Age groups and attempted returns to ancient, primitive, mostly pantheistic or ancestor-worshipping cults are, to me, tiresome. And yet I yearn and I suspect I’m not alone.

(Discussion in ‘Christianity‘ started by wil, Feb 20, 2022)

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