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I don't think it's like in "Julius Caesar": There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on..." etc Rather I think we are constantly confronted with the choice, to be authentic, to stay on the tightrope, or to lose focus, to fall away. So easy to be lulled by the routine...

Just to clarify, I was not espousing the Gnostic position where material=evil and spiritual=good. I was only saying that in order to know yourself you must untangle it from your material drives. As for the Law, as Thomas has said, often misrepresented as an autocratic set of requirements...

Hi Brian, From a theistic point of view, as you live closer to God, your will becomes more attuned to the will of God, so what you most want becomes the same as what God wants. You are then "on the path", and you know the sense of your life unfolding as it should. But how do you live...

Re: Checking assumptions...... That's absolutely right, Dream, we can never know the absolute God. We each have a unique vision of God, and our own pathway to the divine. Religions can speak for the general vision of God in a society, but each person will have their own version of it. We are...

Re: Faith as an emotionally powerful fantasy = visual mind-pictures which touch a ... I don't like the word 'fantasy' as it has connotations of self-delusion, and I don't think that's what is meant here. I don't know if it's helpful to think of religions as having a life of their own. They...

This is a great post. Look hard at it: it shows where linear logical understanding has to give up in the face of that which cannot be comprehended. Language itself cannot constrain the mystery of God, but breaks down in the attempt. A name is an identity. It defines a thing or a person, shows...

Nick, You could have quoted from Exodus for plenty of examples of wrath. Why pick on Genesis? Of course neither book is about a "Christian" God, any more than a Muslim God or a Jewish God, but Genesis pre-dates all of these. Read carefully: the "enmity" is between the serpent and the woman...

I am indebted to you for starting an interesting and certainly not frivolous thread. I don't think you intended to ask what the official Christian position is. You could look that up in Wikipedia. The question is: what is the nature of the resurrection? Does it involve the raising of the...

I don't want to push this too far if it offends Thomas. For myself, I started as a perfectly normal C of E Christian. Over the last ten years or so I have been asking questions and seeking to clarify and expand my understanding, not only within Christian circles but also beyond. I have a number...

The article said that Christ could materialise and dematerialise at will. In this respect he was Tardis-like. That is what it said. I think the problem comes when style overtakes substance. Yes I agree. But you haven't answered my central point. You can't act selflessly and be rewarded too...

To translate your quote into more accessible language, then, you are saying that Christ's resurrected body included a sort of personal Tardis*. Well, that finesses its way round the contradictions at least. Personally I don't find the idea of my body being sucked into the universe by an...

It does seem Thomas that your arguments are reflexive. We will have a body, but only one which is nothing like a body. We will have life but not life as we know it. Christ had a physical resurrection, but only if you redefine the word physical. Most people with a simple faith have always...

I don't think you can itemise "sin". It's a state of mind. If we were to have perfect trust in God there would be no sin. But things get scary, our faith wobbles, and we start closing off to others and taking care of ourselves instead. It's all downhill from there on. We get scared and this...

Here I disagree. I think that having a blind adherence to an ancient text just because it is ancient borders on the superstitious, not to say idolatrous. There are plenty of inspired and wise authors living today, capable of building up the light by drawing on the experience and wisdom...

And the same goes for Shakespeare. You see a play from about 400 years ago, but you get caught up in the human drama just as much - or more - as if you were watching a soap on the telly. So with the Bible: I can't read the story of David's reaction to the loss of his son Absolom without crying...

The Trees : Philip Larkin The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in...

Kimya Dawson "wandering daughter" i am the wanderer's wandering daughter wrestle the pestle for the sake of the mortar i love as i breathe and leave as i live my cast iron shield's a titanium sieve and a castle that's built on confusion and doubt is a nickel within and a dollar without just...

Some say it was Krishna Who came to save and please us. Some think it was Buddha, Yet others that it was Jesus. Some say the Laws of Conduct, To Moses God had said. Some that God had spoken But to Prophet Mohammed. Like the frog which was certain That its pond was all the sea, Every one is...

Now I'm not a good guitar player at all, but I love it when I pick up my guitar and something beautiful flows right through me and out of my fingers to the guitar, and it sings something I could never even imagine, let alone express. I love that.

The avatar says it all. Love, cliff