God's Footprints

[sonoman]

In July I had a another series of spiritual "news" from this new personal relationship with Father, Father Jesus, as God identified Itself to me at the end of last year, ending 28 years of a Christian without Jesus relationship. It was a Gnostic one in which I found and followed God's wisdom through indirect gnosis, lot's of visions and revelations but not Jesus talking with me as my other Christian friends experienced with their "personal relationships" with Him. For me it was God, no Jesus, and therefore I was pretty well convinced "Jesus Christ" was not an authentic Spirit of God but a man-made construct and people who had a relationship with this made-made construct were just fooling themselves. Then God corrected me..well, sort of..still got the gnostic heretical viewpoint but now Father Jesus talks with me whenever I ask for guidance which makes me very careful now what I ask.

Has there been a Gnostic Christian discussion section here before? I would like to share the new stuff I've just recently learned these past two months that now unites the New Testament Gospels with Thomas for me-they are both talking about the same thing which is the Kingdom of God that One with Creation and humanity.

3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

When you know, really know, why it was said humanity is made in the image of God, and why Jesus said, "I and My Father are one", Creation takes on a whole different dimension. It's not easily seen or even less comprehended, I can see the Gospel of John in answer to Thomas, a division in the Christian gnostic ranks between those who believed Creation good and the Father good, and those who believed Creation was the botched job of an inferior god and best avoided as much as possible. I am of course firmly straddling the fence between both camps.

 

[Quahom1]

In July I had a another series of spiritual "news" from this new personal relationship with Father, Father Jesus, as God identified Itself to me at the end of last year, ending 28 years of a Christian without Jesus relationship. It was a Gnostic one in which I found and followed God's wisdom through indirect gnosis, lot's of visions and revelations but not Jesus talking with me as my other Christian friends experienced with their "personal relationships" with Him. For me it was God, no Jesus, and therefore I was pretty well convinced "Jesus Christ" was not an authentic Spirit of God but a man-made construct and people who had a relationship with this made-made construct were just fooling themselves. Then God corrected me..well, sort of..still got the gnostic heretical viewpoint but now Father Jesus talks with me whenever I ask for guidance which makes me very careful now what I ask.

Has there been a Gnostic Christian discussion section here before? I would like to share the new stuff I've just recently learned these past two months that now unites the New Testament Gospels with Thomas for me-they are both talking about the same thing which is the Kingdom of God that One with Creation and humanity.

3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

When you know, really know, why it was said humanity is made in the image of God, and why Jesus said, "I and My Father are one", Creation takes on a whole different dimension. It's not easily seen or even less comprehended, I can see the Gospel of John in answer to Thomas, a division in the Christian gnostic ranks between those who believed Creation good and the Father good, and those who believed Creation was the botched job of an inferior god and best avoided as much as possible. I am of course firmly straddling the fence between both camps.

Watch out you don't miss your footing...

 

[Epper]

I would have to say other PLUS all the above.

I go from talking to God (and thanking and praising because I was taught to) to not being sure he exists. I would like a very personal experience that was visible: eyes, ears, touch and be able to ask questions. Knock my socks off type of experience. And no, not "a near death experience" I've had too much ugliness in my life to want that. I still always go back to talking to Him so maybe being on the fence is the worst thing I can do. But I must be honest and say a vacillate.

 

[lunamoth]

Well, I couldn't leave out any, and realized that I forgot to add CS Lewis' (and other's) argument from morality.

I'll try to put them in order of importance to me though:

1. Personal relationship with God. This is the starting place for me. I know God has lead me to Him and helped me very directly. I experience God is love.

2. Wonder at the universe. I put this early because it is definitely part of the hook for me. The more I learned about the universe, the more my response of wonder and awe. I'm with Francis Collins and many other scientists who found the language of God written in DNA (among the stars, in the depths of the sea...). I'm not saying this is 'proof' of God because I don't think God need to keep interferring and tinkering with his Creation to make it so, He breathed and it was, He breathes and we are.

3. Emergent Properties and Paradoxes.

I actually think emergent properties are pretty strong evidence that the basis of existence is consciousness. Unlike PoO, I don't see this as evidence that the impetus of life is pushed from grassroots, but more like it is being pulled toward consciousness.

Paradox is just as much a part of science as it is religion. In science we don't call it Mystery, yet we are still left with things that we know but can't understand with just logic. Two mutually exclusive models are both 'true.' To be a scientist or to have faith, sooner or later you need to get comfortable with paradox.

4. Revelation. I believe that God (is Consciousness and more than consciousness) breaks through and inspires prophets and sages, those individuals who not only receive messages from God and are compelled to pass that on to us, but also have been aided by God in the removal of most of the normal veils we carry between ourselves and God. It's a matter of purity of vision and retained connectedness to God that combine to make the prophet's experience and message 'get through.' The Holy Spirit is at work in the prophet and in the recipients of the message.

Scripture is a record of a people's experience of God, giving us the foundations of what they knew their relationship with God to be, and what God expected of them. The principles, if not the specifics, are trustworthy for opening up those relationships.

The revelation witnessed in Jesus' life is the greatest evidence for the Christian faith. Because the witnesses to Christ say that God is Love, and my experience is that God is Love, I believe in (trust) Christ.

5. Morality. We know when we've done something wrong, we have a concept of right and wrong. What we know is right often is in conflict with what we may want to do. If may even be in conflict with our own survival or the survival of our future progeny, and thus is anti-evolution in a sense. I don't think the argument from morality is air-tight, but it is more evidence that we are foundationally more than just animals (or genes) surviving. Evolutionary psychologists propose that all moral behavior is ultimately based in group/communal genetics. However, I think that the development of our self-aware brains means that we break out of the bonds that evolution would normally put on morality. We can override our own best interests and often believe that is the human thing to do, even if we don't want to, even if we can't bring ourselves to do it.

6. Mystical or supernatural experiences. I think these are the stuff of what prophets experience, and while I feel God has directly moved my life, I can't say I equate this with a mystical or supernatural experience. I don't know. The one time I had such an experience, a loss of self, a merging with All, was when I was still a pre-teen. I've never again had that same kind of experience so it has not played a large role in my life. I wonder if I did more meditation or contemplative prayer if I would experience that again.

7. Fine-tuning argument. Well, OK I admit it seems like the odds of us becoming us are so long as to be almost impossible without invoking the multi-verse theory or a Creator. And, the evidence for the multi-verse is just as impossible as evidence for God. I've got a lot more reasons in 1-6 above to believe in God. It's evidence but I'd never rest my laurels on the fine-tuning argument because it really ends up being another God of the Gaps, neither scientifically nor theologically satisfying.

Wow, that took a long time for me to type up.

 

[sonoman]

Before Father Jesus formed a personal relationship with me what I had of evidence of God's reality were the religious visions and revelations that here and there were "confirmed" by being reproduced in some manner as synchronicity experiences. It was very much as if God had strewn a cookie crumb trail of spiritual truths that I was meant to find. God was this Mysterious Something that left the trail of clues to Its existence and desires for human beings. In short, for me God and this Path left by God, the Footprints, were one and the same. It was as close as I thought I'd ever get to knowing God. But that's all changed now. Immanuel. That is the truth. God is with us.