Recent content by otherbrother

Ditto on that. Seems like an artifact of tribalism. More like “we choose to be THE ones. Exclusionary. The healthier, more loving attitude would be “We all can grow. Let’s help each other do that, and we will eventually all benefit from it. Win/win. Not zero sum.

From first article: In the debates, immortality is usually taken to mean the inability of the person to perish. If we identify with Ultimate Reality (whatever specific form it may or may not have) then, “we” (at least the way we think of ourselves) is by definition immortal because Ultimate...

Image to contemplate in terms of our discussion about developmental stages including movement from independence (selfhood) to interdependence.

Perfect synchronicity: Just as I was parking the church bus I drive to shuttle folks from a retirement village to church, a moth landed on inside of my driver’s side window. I rolled the window down to “liberate” it, Out it flew, free as a bird (or should I say “moth”)!

If you think of developmental stages (as many have), the fear tactic was of a tribal DEPENDENCY stage. In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the dependency stage meets group survival needs. Better to be afraid than dead! But as relative mastery of survival occurs, humankind can advance to...

I agree up to a point. Certainly stuff men made up to approximate their experience of an unknown that seemed useful, like creative solutions appearing out of nowhere. The God function was discovered during times of limited resources and means, along the lines of necessity is the mother of...

That was the God Function (or simply God) disguised as an imaginary friend so the child could relate to (whatever is) God in an intimate and effective manner.

I get your logic on the Big Bang, as the explosion was likely the result of a Greater Reality (Or non physical dimension) coming into a lesser reality, physical dimension. The physical dimension cannot adequately contain the other dimension, so, Bang. And with the explosion everything stretches...

Somehow I got my reply in the wrong place. Looked like Light Within was saying it. Here is my reply: The alternate belief is that the path back to God (heaven?) is much longer for the non-righteous. No eternal hell, just the hells of bad karma/consequences. I’m with Rob Bell on that one. All...

And if it is useful, works to make us feel and be more whole, more abundantly alive, how is that not a real thing? God is because God works. As you say, faith in God is useful, so God functions in our lives in a very real way. That doesn’t tell us the details of the reality, just its effects...

I totally agree. Well educated people whose basic needs (and then some) are met may need a little Buddha (who had it all but saw there was more) in the mix as well.

I agree that we do need to glean wisdom from the inspired text, but also believe that the Bible is mostly a divinely inspired meaningful myth (with some historical facts also). It is open to interpretation because, like Creation itself, much of its beauty and usefulness lies in the fact that it...

Speaking of potential being gradually actualized, it dawned on me that the way I interpreted the premonitory dream as saving MY life was/is egocentric because it is more likely that it saved the life of the farmer on a tractor that I would have run into on a curve in the road if I hadn’t had a...