is conversion appropriate in this age?

[_Z_]

personally i think gods peace is an illusion, i just cannot see anything there that i would call a god. christians always go on about it as if they have found something that no one else can see, frankly i don’t believe it, i think there is only one reality and if there was this massive god thingy then everyone would notice it ~ no conversion necessary.

i think you just have this idea in your minds that you correlate to actual natures of reality, ones that any seer can see, and you round it all up in a different way to others. akhenaten was the first monotheist and his god was entirely different to yours, i expect that each one of you believes in a slightly different god. this leaves me with the idea that you are all drawing from the same source just in differing ways.

when anyone can say what the hell they actually mean, then maybe i will believe. up unltil then you have nothing ~ as i see it.

 

[Dream]

Join them LOL, I suppose I could but I prefer wacky charismatic type meetings and I enjoy the freedom to understand the bible without being spoon fed theology.

but I have considered collecting religions ! so far I been...

Good sense of humor! I am not caught up on most of this thread yet (apologize) but wanted to respond to you. GTG, you mentioned Colossians 2:8, which talks about 'Hollow' and 'Vain' philosophy and 'Human tradition'.

I believe you (please correct me if I'm wrong) see this as a stroke against a too-much-brain approach to Christianity, or what some refer to as 'Legalism'. Perhaps you are right, but I am not sure that is what this verse means. I think we agree where it says 'Human tradition', which would mean 'Do not put' tradition above morals; but what about 'Hollow and vain philosophy'? You said 'Spoon fed theology' in your post, however you could mean several different things by that. I have been taking 'Hollow and vain philosophy' to be a direct reference to Greek Philosophy (such as Platonism) or the various mystical philosophic traditions that were around at the time this was written. I see it as a warning against trying to make up facts out of thin air. I don't see it as a strike against talking about meanings of words in the Bible and their importance. Does this sound way out there to you? Maybe it sounds strange coming from me, but I am originally a charismatic and know lots of charismatics.

 

[path_of_one]

personally i think gods peace is an illusion, i just cannot see anything there that i would call a god. christians always go on about it as if they have found something that no one else can see, frankly i don’t believe it, i think there is only one reality and if there was this massive god thingy then everyone would notice it ~ no conversion necessary.

LOL- but this is actually quite logically false. People fail to notice huge things all the time. Never underestimate the human capacity for determined ignorance. I'm not saying anything about a "Christian" god (whatever that would mean), but rather that people can and do ignore all sorts of patently real stuff.

this leaves me with the idea that you are all drawing from the same source just in differing ways.

Well, yeah. I think so. I see it as "me small, God BIG" and so necessarily each of us is limited in our capacity to grasp the infinite.

when anyone can say what the hell they actually mean, then maybe i will believe. up unltil then you have nothing ~ as i see it.

Believe in what?

 

[Saltmeister]

i think there is only one reality and if there was this massive god thingy then everyone would notice it ~ no conversion necessary.

I don't think that is entirely true . . .

In a world with so many different cultures, different political systems, different political, legal, cultural and artistic traditions, that is far from being true IMHO.

Take China for example. In a country with a state-controlled media, and where the Chinese Communist Party has an iron grip over the entire political system, and ubiquitous Party officials, most people follow the "teachings" of the Chinese Communist Party and "believe in what it says."

Despite opening up its markets, the rhetoric of the CCP has become so entrenched in the national psyche, that it's hard for the Chinese to divorce themselves from the CCP. It has become a part of China's political and legal tradition. When news of the Tibetan riots appeared in the Western media, a lot of Chinese complained of "Western media bias." I think that was missing the point. It had to do with the Tiannamen Square massacre. To me, it wasn't bias, but merely suspicion on the part of the Western media. What the Chinese government did last year in Tibet was similar to what the CCP (under Deng Xiao Ping) did in Tiannamen Square two decades ago. China barred foreign media from getting into the area.

It's understandable that having military units in an area doesn't mean that there's a massacre. It doesn't mean people were slaughtered. But keeping foreign media out increases people's suspicions. Who knows? Maybe it really was another Tiannamen Square!!! The CCP had learnt its lessons from the Tiannamen Square massacre of 1989 and this time it wasn't going to let the world know about it.

If the CCP is still in power a decade from now, Chinese children will be born without the opportunity of ever knowing what happened in Tiannamen Square, let alone during the Tibetan riots. This will have consequences for the diplomatic and foreign policy of China in the decades to come, where administrations of future Presidents know little about the sins of their governments in the past.

Reality is subjective. Each individual has his own experience.

I believe you (please correct me if I'm wrong) see this as a stroke against a too-much-brain approach to Christianity, or what some refer to as 'Legalism'.

I'm not sure what association you're making there, but by "too-much-brain approach" I thought you'd be meaning to say "intellectual approach." But legalism isn't intellectual (though it can be). Legalism is about making rules, setting boundaries for people and demanding that people conform to them. It's about what's legal and illegal, not about the brainy stuff, the stuff that's intellectual.

I don't see it as a strike against talking about meanings of words in the Bible and their importance. Does this sound way out there to you? Maybe it sounds strange coming from me, but I am originally a charismatic and know lots of charismatics.

I think people should actually try to think about the meaning of the words in the Bible, rather than accepting that what a preacher, pastor, priest or presbyter says about the meaning is the actual truth of the words.

Religious leaders are not all-knowing and very often their education is below that which would be required for meaningful interpretation and contemplation of the meaning of a sacred text. I don't have enough confidence in the profession to really trust and believe that what professional/appointed religious leaders say is actually what the words could or should mean.

Professional religious leaders often spend so much time doing what they do, preaching and reading, then they neglect the social, personal and emotional aspects of their lives.

I think the common people are often in a much better position to contemplate the meaning of a religious text because their lives are so much richer that that of a religious instructor who spends almost all of his life instructing and lecturing others on religious matters. To guide people, one must be living in the same world, the same reality as those people.

I therefore rely on my own knowledge and experience.

 

[Dream]

Salty,

I'm talking about charismatic circles in which there are some who completely eschew an intellectual approach, but most think of the right approach to the Bible as a balance. Under these circumstances legalism becomes something else than what you've defined it as. Instead, it is a term having to do with focusing 'too much' on understanding scripture verses which many consider a trap -- relying too much on one's intellect. When one verse appears to be a contradiction to another, and the person begins to think about it too much it is legalism. Some think about the words but also believe the words go right past the mind into 'the spirit of the man'. From this perspective there is a completely different definition for both 'spiritual food' and also for 'legalism'. No it isn't the dictionary meaning of the term, however not everybody uses that definition. Beyond that, I agreed with what you said in your next paragraph.

 

[_Z_]

path, hi

LOL- but this is actually quite logically false. People fail to notice huge things all the time. Never underestimate the human capacity for determined ignorance. I’m not saying anything about a "Christian" god (whatever that would mean), but rather that people can and do ignore all sorts of patently real stuff.

true but what i am saying is that you believe you don’t know! you presume god, but you sense something else. you could describe absolutely everything you feel or think you know about god, and i would show you that none are god. to counter this you would have to define god and no one around here are going to do that ~ and if they did it would not be god they are describing. it is simply belief in an illusion.

saltmeister, hi

In a world with so many different cultures, different political systems, different political, legal, cultural and artistic traditions, that is far from being true IMHO.

with all our differences we all see that the world is the world.
interesting post. do you buy the brain in a vat concept showing the empirical notion of subjectivity? personally i don’t agree with empiricism in this context, there comes a point where the subjective is objective e.g. in observation itself. i also believe love joins us, and that when we see a beautiful valley we connect with that, the brain doesn’t make reality, up it simply shows us what IS there. occasionally like with optical illusions the tools we have are inadequate, the rest of the time they are not.

 

[path_of_one]

true but what i am saying is that you believe you don’t know! you presume god, but you sense something else.

Not really. I just call what I experience "God." I suspect you have a different idea about God than I do, so you say my "God" isn't God. OK. It's all just semantics and labels at that point. It's like you saying "No, that sofa is not a chair" and me saying "But it is a chair- it falls in the chair category" and you saying "No, a chair only seats one person" and me saying "But I define a chair by its primary design as something to sit on" ad nauseum. It's just semantics and I don't get the point of the conversation. Call it whatever you wish- I've done my best to describe it and I don't particularly care what other people call it, as it doesn't matter.

you could describe absolutely everything you feel or think you know about god, and i would show you that none are god. to counter this you would have to define god and no one around here are going to do that ~ and if they did it would not be god they are describing. it is simply belief in an illusion.

There is a difference between attempts to describe something that one doesn't have parameters or full knowledge of, and illusion. Your assertion that my experience is illusory is no more logical, rational, empirical, etc. than my assertion that it is not. In fact, it is less logical, since you presume to know my own experience better than I do, which obviously could not be the case.

with all our differences we all see that the world is the world.

No, we don't really. Any passing reading into cognitive anthropology would demonstrate that people have widely differing perceptions and conceptions of the "real" world. Case in point- different cultures have different numbers of colors they "see," ranging from only light/dark to all the ones we have in the Western world... and everything in between. And before you say it's just a matter of words... I could easily argue the same for talking about God. As a cognitive anthropologist, I can provide many case studies and theoretical works on the topic, if you like. People experience vastly different worlds based on their culture, language, and the influence on our categories of thought.

occasionally like with optical illusions the tools we have are inadequate, the rest of the time they are not.

The tools we have are usually adequate for what they are meant for- to enhance our survival as a species and allow social bonding. They are pretty inadequate for most other activities without a lot of effort. We are lousy at probabilities without statistics, for example. We do well with rules of thumb, but lousy at probabilities, in simple observation. We only observe in ways we were taught to observe by our culture, so we miss all sorts of information in the world without our conscious knowledge of it. We can sort out short-term personal consequences, but we have difficulty assessing long-term wide-flung (group-wide) consequences- that's why we have the Tragedy of the Commons. And on and on.

Oh, and optical illusions are also cultural. The same illusions don't work from one culture to another. It depends on how your culture trains your brain to perceive space.

 

[mee]

is conversion appropriate in this age?

I would say taking in knowledge about the True God, and his son Jesus Christ , will lead to everlasting life . John 17;3


I say that because that is what Jesus said ,and its good to listen to Jesus .


and i say that because the father of Jesus, said to listen to what Jesus said LUKE 9;35

and its all in the bible about the true God JEHOVAH PSALM 83;18


And his son Jesus Christ JOHN 3;16
The bible and what it REALLY teaches is REALLY good

IT PUTS US STRAIGHT 2 timothy 3;16-17

 

[GlorytoGod]

Good sense of humor! I am not caught up on most of this thread yet (apologize) but wanted to respond to you. GTG, you mentioned Colossians 2:8, which talks about 'Hollow' and 'Vain' philosophy and 'Human tradition'.

I believe you (please correct me if I'm wrong) see this as a stroke against a too-much-brain approach to Christianity, or what some refer to as 'Legalism'. Perhaps you are right, but I am not sure that is what this verse means. I think we agree where it says 'Human tradition', which would mean 'Do not put' tradition above morals; but what about 'Hollow and vain philosophy'? You said 'Spoon fed theology' in your post, however you could mean several different things by that. I have been taking 'Hollow and vain philosophy' to be a direct reference to Greek Philosophy (such as Platonism) or the various mystical philosophic traditions that were around at the time this was written. I see it as a warning against trying to make up facts out of thin air. I don't see it as a strike against talking about meanings of words in the Bible and their importance. Does this sound way out there to you? Maybe it sounds strange coming from me, but I am originally a charismatic and know lots of charismatics.

Thanks for your input Dream, I honestly cant quite remember why I quoted

Colossians 2:8 (New International Version)

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

I can see that as a warning against any philosophy or theology that takes away from the revelation of Christ within us, whatever that may be.

thats just my take it on though

why are you no longer charismatic ?

 

[_Z_]

path, hi

semantics yes, what i was alluding to was the idea that no one knows, so if you say i am sometimes at one with god or his love, then what are you actually at one with... maybe much of it is within you, i would say that not all parts of it [in the least] are ‘gods’ love, they are your love?_! the oneness we may obtain in differing ways [like love between two people etc] is a mutual thing, the inner love we may feel for all is inner within you.
in other words what you feel etc is real, it is the attributing of that to god which i am questioning.

Any passing reading into cognitive anthropology would demonstrate that people have widely differing perceptions and conceptions of the "real" world.

true yes, yet from an engineering background i make an exact part for a machine and that is what it is for everyone. you may then drive around in that machine and it will work etc etc. so i agree there is an argument for subjectivity, but also that there is an argument by which the world is the world, any differences are due to human or animal inadequacies and misperception.

Oh, and optical illusions are also cultural. The same illusions don’t work from one culture to another. It depends on how your culture trains your brain to perceive space.

interesting, thank you!

 

[path_of_one]

if you say i am sometimes at one with god or his love, then what are you actually at one with... maybe much of it is within you, i would say that not all parts of it [in the least] are ‘gods’ love, they are your love?_! the oneness we may obtain in differing ways [like love between two people etc] is a mutual thing, the inner love we may feel for all is inner within you.
in other words what you feel etc is real, it is the attributing of that to god which i am questioning.

AH-HA! I think we are talking past one another... as you seem here to make god and me separate and distinct entities. I think the inner love I may feel is God. God is love (well, a certain kind of love). God is creativity. Etc. When I experience these things, whether I cognitively place them in the category of "from other" or "from within," it doesn't matter. Based on how I conceptualize God, there is no real me to begin with. I'm just a temporary illusion of self-ness. So everything relational is also within me. My vantage point as observer makes this the case, as anything to which I relate is also something I am creating in my mind... the relationship is possible because I am actually not a being relating with another being, but instead just a temporary manifestation of Being itself.

I don't know if that makes any sense to you. It's pretty Buddhist, actually. God, for me, is not a being but rather Being itself. I'm a part of God, but not separate from it.

One analogy is that I am a wave, but I am also water. The wave is temporary and will dissipate, but the water remains. I can choose consciousness of the wave, the water, or both at once.

any differences are due to human or animal inadequacies and misperception.

Well, yes and no. You don't think we partially create our world, and hence very real differences? I wouldn't say all the differences are due to inadequacies and misperception... some might be due to our real differences in experience based on what we ourselves create. No less real than the other real stuff.

Saying it is about misperception or inadequacy, when you deal with human perspectives and worldviews, smacks of ethnocentrism... priviledging some people with the right to know and others being "superstitious" or whatever. An atheist may think a shaman is "misperceiving" his/her experiences as spirits, when in fact it's "all in her head." A shaman may think the atheist is "inadequate" in her capacity to observe and interact with the spirit world. Neither is more rational than the other, more based on observable "fact," etc. Both simply have their own personality and culture, and are interpreting others accordingly, insisting their world is the "real" one and other people are inadequate or misinformed.

The very ideals on which Western science are built are themselves cultural artifacts and subject to all the same biases and assumptions that anything else cultural is. There is a huge literature on the subject from the post-modernist view in the social sciences. While I would not say I'm a post-modernist, I heed their warning.

 

[Dream]

why are you no longer charismatic ?

I cannot give you an answer. Every person is unique, so I guess at some point I did not fit the available scenery well enough to get along.

 

[Dondi]

I cannot give you an answer. Every person is unique, so I guess at some point I did not fit the available scenery well enough to get along.

Or maybe something like this turned you off?

Benny Hinn, Let the bodies hit the floorVideo

 

[Dream]

I have been to two events where that minister visited, and I have received a personal prophecy from one of his associate ministers. He was just more of the same that I was already used to. I have been in many different types of healing services, in more than one place, including leg-lengthening services. I have observed many, many ministers and have heard thousands of sermons. As I grew up among charismatics, I gave the ministry the benefit of the doubt and just tabulated promises, non-miracles, claims, etc. There is a natural innocence that many people possess where they cannot believe that deceit is possible or cannot believe it could appear as truth. This speaks well for them but not for their education, and the same was spoken of me and mine.

I discovered betrayal by many loving and believable, sincerely deceiving people; so I became aware that this is possible with men. People convince themselves that they are doing the world a favor when they lie, and such people may even get a rush out of lying. I learned about public speaking & recognized the techniques, learned about the hypnotic techniques, learned Bible, learned demonology (bunk), learned about laying on of hands techniques, musical emotions, environmental controls, and I learned many things were possible that I had not thought possible. In fact, with humanity "all things are possible" in a very bad way. I assure you, there is no need for any fallen angels. Some people will never eat hot dogs because they've seen what goes into them. I will never be charismatic about any religion, ever again. Worse, I am comforted that when I die, there will be one less evil thing in this world, which is my memory of the way things are.

 

[Dondi]

I've obviously struck a chord, Dream. I'm sorry if the video I posted offended you in any way.

For what it's worth, I was involved in the charismatic movement myself in the mid-eighties, not long before all the Baker and Swaggart scandals hit. I'd just gotten back to the Lord, after wandering into a brief period of agnosticism. But my yearning for the Lord was strong that I was willing to believe anyone who was 'spiritual'. I got caught up in an Apostolic church. Now I don't want to start out on the wrong foot here as I believed in many ways I grew spiritually in that environment, particularly in my pray life, the bible opened up for me, and I could see positive changes in my lifestyle and I felt better about myself and with relationships with others. And of course the Lord.

The problem I had with this particular church is that they insisted that I wasn't 'saved', even though at 13 I'd accepted Christ. You see, they believe that you not only have to profess Christ, but you also have to have the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues and that you have to be baptized in Jesus' name only (as opposed to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as I was before). See, they believe the Jesus is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one package. As hungry as I was, I was gullible enough to believe all that, and I got caught all into the speaking in tongues gig. And I was rebaptized in Jesus' name. And I was ok in that.

However, two things began to eat at me. For one, if it was true that one had to speak in tongues and get baptized in Jesus' name in order to be saved, then that means that the rest of my family was eternally lost. I found that hard to swallow, particularly because I have such strong Christian parents. And I also thought that the population in heaven is going to be rather small indeed if all that is true.

The other thing is that they are a 'shepherding movement', which meant that you were accountable and expected out of obligation to attend every single service. And you wer expected to abide by every whim. Well, one day, some other friends (from a charismatic Baptist church, if you can believe that) and I when to a crusade in LA one Sunday and had a blessed time. Well the next service at the Apostolic church, I was seriously questioned about my whereabouts the previous service. When I explained that I attended a crusade, from which I received a blessing, they chided me that I needed to be here, that this is where you are going to find the power of God, because of course, they have the truth an power of the Holy Spirit.

It didn't take me long to leave that church and I ended up hooking up with the charismatic Baptist church.

Dream, people are going to get deceived and misled. And maybe you got into something that not only deceived you, but drew you in far enough that you became the deceiver, from what I gather in your post. But please put that past behind you. God will forgive you and restore you. It takes courage to admit that you've done wrong and I admire that you've shared this with us here. But life is too short to keep hammering yourself into the ground with this. Take hold of the good things you have from the Lord and go with it. God is still God despite all that you've seen. I believe that God can heal, but on His own terms. I've seen and heard individual testamonies. Strengthen that which remains, my friend. As evil as you think you are, you are equally capable in doing good, especially with God's help. Just go to Him humbly and honestly and you will see.

 

[Dream]

Fortunately I have skated through without doing any major deceiving, and none on purpose. Yes people are going to deceive and mislead, however there is no reason future generations should be left vulnerable as ours have been. Our population is changing, and I hope is starting to make such bad behavior unprofitable. Either way, I might begin my own information campaign within a few years. Right now I'm not in a position to do that, although I could start preparing. Maybe I should print some tracts up, links to information etc.

 

[Dondi]

I'm hopeful that more investigations like the one Senator Grassley is conducting will expose the frauds and make them accountable. Perhaps even get them off the air. Not that I'm holding my breath. But then you have the medium of the Internet that can show who these people really are.

 

[_Z_]

path, hi
.

I think the inner love I may feel is God.

.
i would call that ‘bliss’ and see it in quite a buddhist/druidic context, but i see no reason why it cannot be god ~ if you god is universal. mast christians argue against such a thing as it is the very basis of paganism; universal spirit manifesting in multiple ways and in all things. the christian god is specifically unique and absolute with no part being of anything else - i think so anyway. maybe modern christians don’t see it like that, but no one ever says what they think so who knows.

obviously some amount of inner and outer emotional love is a part of you, both physically and spiritually too ~ and that collectively is a major part of the whole of love in you. so its up to you to determine honestly what is god and what is you, but it would be incorrect to say ‘the love in me is of god’, at most you can only say a small part of it is.
.

how I conceptualize God, there is no real me to begin with.

.
i see, this would mean your god is literally everything, all good things and all evil things. he is the beauty of a summer meadow and the ugliness of a sewer, a saint and a rapist. you see you have to draw line or think of god as a gradient, either way he is not the whole of you. a druid would describe everything you said so far, with caugant [divine centre] as the inner love, and the great mother as the universal expression of that. god would not be mentioned once, so here again we have to determine the natures of god? would i be entirely wrong in my thinking?
this concept fails at the same level as buddhism in its monoism.
.

but instead just a temporary manifestation of Being itself.

.
are you? well we could have a fascinating debate about that some time, but it is a rather large topic area to delve into. one would more or less have to define everything to resolve it. for example; the simplest explanation of all things would be that only nirvana or emptiness exists, there would be no reason to add anything. there is existence though and along with it all things transient, existence cannot just end leaving us with only the emptiness or many paradoxes would arise. in short we end up with the notion that even the transient is eternal [a continuum], then we would arrive at questions about transience itself! in this is where ‘you’ lay, the same universals belong to you as to god [or any such deity], what makes him eternal makes you so, i.e...
.

I can choose consciousness of the wave, the water, or both at once.

.
it is the very thing of the will which contradicts oneness [amongst many other things]. it is surely the strangest thing that we can become nothing then we can become manifest, like the pheonix from the flame, yet the universe does it. i think this is the most inner nature of existence.
.

Saying it is about misperception or inadequacy, when you deal with human perspectives and worldviews, smacks of ethnocentrism... priviledging some people with the right to know and others being "superstitious" or whatever.

.
not at all, we all have the right to know and that is why truth should not be whitewashed with agreed truths or unsubstantiated truths ~ and mostly not all in one bag. all i want to do is know, if people present me with a given truth i am happy to take it in. mostly people don’t ever say what they mean and sometimes they don’t tell truths but vague truths, or they may fail to clarify what they mean. all credit to you as you are clarifying what you mean, truth is a journey we are both finding out more about our truths by taking this journey. the notion of god is in a sense the very thing you are complaining about, it puts everything in to one place and denies any other truth. this is then furthered by the bible which continues along this theme, it gather some truths, historical, philosophical, moral etc, then adds them to ‘stories’ and presents the whole as the truth. yet some ethics and morals change over time as have our understandings about the world and the universe. thus by presenting everything at once we are adding ‘agreed truths’ which may not be true at all, or may be cultural/societal, to actual truths, along with a generous sprinkling of myth.
i think you hit the nail on the head there!
.
thanks path

 

[path_of_one]

i would call that ‘bliss’ and see it in quite a buddhist/druidic context, but i see no reason why it cannot be god ~ if you god is universal. mast christians argue against such a thing as it is the very basis of paganism; universal spirit manifesting in multiple ways and in all things.

Well, I never said I was answering for all or most Christians. Just answering for me. I know Christians that agree with me and Christians that don't.

the christian god is specifically unique and absolute with no part being of anything else - i think so anyway. maybe modern christians don’t see it like that, but no one ever says what they think so who knows.

I don't know. I can say that diversity in how God is conceptualized goes back to the very origins of Christianity and has continued up to the present. Christianity is not at all a homogenous religion. Modernity has not much to do with it. You see similar arguments between the Celtic Christians and Augustine, for example, and that was a long long time ago.

obviously some amount of inner and outer emotional love is a part of you, both physically and spiritually too ~ and that collectively is a major part of the whole of love in you. so its up to you to determine honestly what is god and what is you, but it would be incorrect to say ‘the love in me is of god’, at most you can only say a small part of it is.

Why? Is this substantiated by anything? Or is it just my interpretation of love versus yours? (In which case, it's kind of a moot point, really- which was partially what I was saying before.)

i see, this would mean your god is literally everything, all good things and all evil things. he is the beauty of a summer meadow and the ugliness of a sewer, a saint and a rapist. you see you have to draw line or think of god as a gradient, either way he is not the whole of you.

Do I have to draw the line? Or is it possible to think that everything does, indeed, have the light of God in it, but that by having free will and temporary consciousness, we are able to choose the darkness and blindly stumble about?

I do believe the rapist has God inside as much as me. But being consciously aware of it and choosing to act accordingly is another matter, and what separates the saints from me and me from the rapist.

As a Christian, I am called to serve Christ by serving others... by seeing the Christ within them. That is my belief. I believe that Jesus' death was the ultimate act of sacrifice that illustrated God's capacity for forgiveness for us... even the worst of us. If God still loves us that much, then how can I not love Him back by extending it (as best I can) to others?

a druid would describe everything you said so far, with caugant [divine centre] as the inner love, and the great mother as the universal expression of that. god would not be mentioned once, so here again we have to determine the natures of god? would i be entirely wrong in my thinking?

Not wrong, but certainly self-determining. You are defining god in the way that works for you, and I am defining god in how it works for me. I would say that I see nothing incompatible between the divine centre and the great mother being what I call god. Seems an issue of semantics. I say- call it what you will- I give the details of my experience the best I can and leave it at that. If someone wishes to say "that is not god," OK. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. As for determining God's nature... I don't think that's possible. We're too limited. Blind men, elephant, all that.

for example; the simplest explanation of all things would be that only nirvana or emptiness exists, there would be no reason to add anything. there is existence though and along with it all things transient, existence cannot just end leaving us with only the emptiness or many paradoxes would arise. in short we end up with the notion that even the transient is eternal [a continuum], then we would arrive at questions about transience itself! in this is where ‘you’ lay, the same universals belong to you as to god [or any such deity], what makes him eternal makes you so, i.e...

Not sure what you're looking for here. I am basing what I'm saying off my peak experiences, and you're reasoning philsophically, and I never found much luck with doing that outside of fun mental entertainment. I am not saying that I do not exist, or that my existence is transitory. I am saying my current sense of self most certainly is, and that is demonstrated through changes in myself thus far. I am neither the same in my development, consciousness, body, goals, or much of anything as I was a while ago. So what makes me, me? Obviously not my current form or thought or feeling.

The other day I was waiting for my carpool and watching a very beautiful thing. It had rained fairly hard and was still drizzling, and the sidewalk was uneven and there was a large puddle of water. A tree (that which made the sidewalk uneven with its roots) was dripping one drop at a time onto the surface of the water, which rippled over and over. And I thought... I am that ripple... my sense of self is fleeting and dependent on others and my ripple is changed by touching other ripples and them touching me. But I'm the water too... the water makes me. And I'm the prime mover too... the tree dripping water is in me. And I'm somehow held by this ground, this depression that sustains me. That makes me, me. The rest may fade away- my sense of who I am may change (and does!)- but in the end, I am made up of God. And amazingly, I can become awake to this and transform my sense of self, bit by bit, into what I really, eternally, am.

it is the very thing of the will which contradicts oneness [amongst many other things]. it is surely the strangest thing that we can become nothing then we can become manifest, like the pheonix from the flame, yet the universe does it. i think this is the most inner nature of existence.

Strange, yes. Contradictory, possibly. But strange, contradictory things happen.

not at all, we all have the right to know and that is why truth should not be whitewashed with agreed truths or unsubstantiated truths ~ and mostly not all in one bag.

Well, I don't think my version of my truth is based on agreement and I can say it is substantiated to me by my experience. But it seems that you want me to say a certain thing as a Christian, and are unfortunately plagued by my saying something else.

mostly people don’t ever say what they mean and sometimes they don’t tell truths but vague truths, or they may fail to clarify what they mean. all credit to you as you are clarifying what you mean, truth is a journey we are both finding out more about our truths by taking this journey.

Of course- that's why I'm here at IO! In terms of people and what they say- I would add that spiritual experience is one of the most difficult things to express, and so I would say a person's vagueness and lack of clarity is in part due to the inadequacy of any language to nail down spiritual experience. The closest thing I get to adequate expression is poetry, music, and art. Tackling it through definition and so forth not only ruins its beauty, but only demonstrates linguistic inadequacy.

I think there is a lot more truth in the Buddha holding up a flower (one of his teachings) than in scores of books picking apart theology and religion.

the notion of god is in a sense the very thing you are complaining about, it puts everything in to one place and denies any other truth.

Why must this be so? I think using the concept of God as humans do, with much variety, actually points out that it is understood in myriad ways.

this is then furthered by the bible which continues along this theme, it gather some truths, historical, philosophical, moral etc, then adds them to ‘stories’ and presents the whole as the truth.

What kind of truth is debated amongst Jews, Christians, and Muslims. You present a very basic view of the Bible and one that doesn't hold up in theological circles.

thus by presenting everything at once we are adding ‘agreed truths’ which may not be true at all, or may be cultural/societal, to actual truths, along with a generous sprinkling of myth.
i think you hit the nail on the head there!
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thanks path

I'd say it's all cultural/societal. How could it not be? We are using language, for one, and that is a cultural phenomenon.

I don't understand how you think we can get "actual truths" without going through the medium of cultural conditioning, linguistic inadequacy, and so forth. And myth can contain truth. Something need not be historically true to contain the capacity to teach truth. That's the point, isn't it?

Thanks, Z.

 

[_Z_]

path, hi

Why? Is this substantiated by anything? Or is it just my interpretation of love versus yours?

i am asking the inquirer to observe what of love is of god and what of love is of them or the material world. of course you will then argue that all of this is still in god, to which i can them make no assessment of what god is. so i agree it is all magic roundabout stuff.

I do believe the rapist has God inside as much as me. But being consciously aware of it and choosing to act accordingly is another matter, and what separates the saints from me and me from the rapist.

interesting and wise point!

I say- call it what you will- I give the details of my experience the best I can and leave it at that.

ok, we all have our own ways of seeing it. by criticising myself and others to a high degree i hope we shall all find better ways of understanding it all for ourselves.

So what makes me, me? Obviously not my current form or thought or feeling.

when you look at the parts you see the change, when you do not there you are! personally i feel the same as when i was young a child even, i just have better usage of my form.

I am that ripple... my sense of self is fleeting and dependent on others and my ripple is changed by touching other ripples and them touching me.

i do wonder the same kind of thing, but when i do i end up with no me and no god. as you say its just interpretations and differing models.

But it seems that you want me to say a certain thing as a Christian, and are unfortunately plagued by my saying something else.

haha not wrong there pooey

i am also inclined to agree about the peotry thing too. i guess i got so severely trashed in the past, that i have learned to fight logic with logic.

Why must this be so? I think using the concept of God as humans do, with much variety, actually points out that it is understood in myriad ways.

to you and me and a few others maybe. historically monotheistic religions have done everything they can to move away from ‘interpretation’.

What kind of truth is debated amongst Jews, Christians, and Muslims. You present a very basic view of the Bible and one that doesn’t hold up in theological circles.

no what i meant was that there are different kinds of truths and combining them doesn’t work. many people consider that the bible is all they need, but it doesnt have many scientific truths in it, and the historical ones are often debatable.

I don’t understand how you think we can get "actual truths" without going through the medium of cultural conditioning, linguistic inadequacy, and so forth.

empiricism is one way. if there are no truths then what is the bible; a collection of lies? or just a vague set of linguistic trifles? we have to accept that some things are true in varying degrees or we have nothing at all.

thanks