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Not at all, mordant. I am saying you are looking to the wrong source for your evidence - other people. That would be why I pointed out that the scriptural definition was wrong. Not having ANY expectations is the opposite of presuppositions. The faith would be that if there is a God, you will be given some indication of it in a way that only you would accept. No, because you are relying on people to prove it to you and you have specified how they must do that. I had NO such expectation that is why when it happened it was so unexpected, powerful and incontrovertible to ME.But the evidentiary standard IS the very expectation that limits how you might receive the knowledge of God's existence. You do not trust yourself to know by any other means.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Well that is your Damascus Road experience, so to speak, and that could just as well happen to me. God could "arrest" me, if he both existed and cared to do so. If that was the decision of an all powerful deity, it would not at all matter what I was open to or paying attention to. So I do not feel skepticism or expectations to be the slightest obstacle to an all-encompassing active love that wanted to reach me
I most certainly don't, and freely admit it, but I don't think that has the significance you ascribe to it unless your deity is as limited as you think it is. Any deity worth the label is fully cognizant of my experiences and responses and is perfectly capable of doing whatever it has to do to make itself known, if that's its actual desire..
But it does matter what you pay attention to, mordant. We are NOT robots and there is no compulsion in agape love, just love. It is like you are only looking for a text message and ignore any other medium.
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Come to think of it, that is really the basic flaw in the arguments of authoritarian theists as well. They elevate human willfulness above the power of, and beyond the reach of the love of, their god, just as you elevate lack of openness to the "required" or "right" things as beyond the reach of your concept of god. Apart from some uncertain bestowal of special grace, both you and they regard people as actually capable of cutting themselves off from the all-encompassing redemptive love of god. Do you really believe agape love conquers all, or not?
You misunderstand, mordant. We are NEVER cut off from the love of God, ever. God is NOT an authoritarian tyrant. God IS love. All the authoritarianism came from the human vanity and hubris of men. All the absurd expectations came from the human vanity and hubris of men. God just wants us to BE the love that He IS.
We are NOT robots and there is no compulsion in agape love, just love.
I said nothing about compulsion. Requiring that something be compelling is not at all the same thing as asking to be forced into something. It would still be my decision but I am speaking here about the power of god to reach people's attention and comprehension without them having to stand on one foot facing the correct compass point with the right attitude and a happy smile. So in point of fact I am actually all ABOUT freedom of choice.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
It is like you are only looking for a text message and ignore any other medium.
No I am not restricting the medium at all. God can use telephone, telegraph, voice, jungle drums, or whatever so long as it reaches those he supposedly wishes to reach.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
You misunderstand, mordant. We are NEVER cut off from the love of God, ever. God is NOT an authoritarian tyrant. God IS love. All the authoritarianism came from the human vanity and hubris of men. All the absurd expectations came from the human vanity and hubris of men. God just wants us to BE the love that He IS.
I know that you are not authoritarian and I didn't say that you were. However, for different reasons, your god and the authoritarian versions are apparently, in the view of those who embrace them, helpless to make themselves known, relevant and compelling to people UNLESS they approach him in a certain way that still, oddly, comes down to the same expressions of fealty and unearned trust that the authoritarians demand.
Credence is not given in advance to all content, it is given when something credible is presented. You are in principle, if not in detail, no different than any other theist insisting that if I would only "just believe" or "be open" that I would see the light that I am currently "blind" to. Well guess what, if I would only "just believe" or "be open" to the claims of homeopathy or blood-letting would those things work for me too? Or should I maybe first determine if they have any credible substantiation or logic to them? Should I "just believe" or "be open" to snorting cocaine for the purpose of mind expansion or would I be well advised to investigate the claims made for it first?
I am "blind" to many things, Mystic ... and rightly so. I don't accept a whole range of ideas and beliefs. I do not "just believe" or "open" myself to bigfoot or leprechauns any more than you do. I certainly will consider credible evidence for such things if anyone ever presented it, but in the meantime, I don't afford belief to them. Why the special pleading for your deity?
46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?†(which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?â€).
God forsaken himself because he himself became a sinner. Isn't that last line not included in all of the 4 kept gospel books and fits perfectly as being a quote from Psalms or something?
No, it was real. The prophet Isaiah says this about the Messiah: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed†(Isaiah 53:4–5). Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made a sin-offering, and He died in our place, on our account, that He might bring us near to God. It was this, doubtless, that intensified His sufferings and part of why Jesus said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?†It was the manifestation of God’s hatred of sin, in some unexplained way, that Jesus experienced in that terrible hour. The suffering He endured was due to us, and it is that suffering by which we can be saved from eternal death.
Isaiah is speaking there in past tense and also mentions how this messiah was ugly and stricken with sickness. I guess you could consider it a "secret" prophecy about the Last Messiah with some added lies such as that Messiah being sick.
But it does matter what you pay attention to, mordant. We are NOT robots and there is no compulsion in agape love, just love. It is like you are only looking for a text message and ignore any other medium.You misunderstand, mordant. We are NEVER cut off from the love of God, ever. God is NOT an authoritarian tyrant. God IS love. All the authoritarianism came from the human vanity and hubris of men. All the absurd expectations came from the human vanity and hubris of men. God just wants us to BE the love that He IS.
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Originally Posted by mordant
I said nothing about compulsion. Requiring that something be compelling is not at all the same thing as asking to be forced into something. It would still be my decision but I am speaking here about the power of god to reach people's attention and comprehension without them having to stand on one foot facing the correct compass point with the right attitude and a happy smile. So in point of fact I am actually all ABOUT freedom of choice.
No I am not restricting the medium at all. God can use telephone, telegraph, voice, jungle drums, or whatever so long as it reaches those he supposedly wishes to reach.
I know that you are not authoritarian and I didn't say that you were. However, for different reasons, your god and the authoritarian versions are apparently, in the view of those who embrace them, helpless to make themselves known, relevant and compelling to people UNLESS they approach him in a certain way that still, oddly, comes down to the same expressions of fealty and unearned trust that the authoritarians demand.
I am doing my usual lousy job of communicating, mordant. The requisite posture if undemanding, unspecified, and a complete lack of expectations. You forget I was an atheist and was seeking Nirvana (the obliteration of self and desire), the opposite of some specific "way" other than the practice of meditation and quieting of the mind. My whole focus was on gainnnning deeper meditative satates by suppression of my autonomic system under conscious control through biofeedback, period. I did not seek God, expect God, believe in God or want God. I just stumbled upon His consciousness eliminating my stupid atheist expectation that our reality is NOT conscious and completely changing my perception of reality.
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Credence is not given in advance to all content, it is given when something credible is presented. You are in principle, if not in detail, no different than any other theist insisting that if I would only "just believe" or "be open" that I would see the light that I am currently "blind" to. Well guess what, if I would only "just believe" or "be open" to the claims of homeopathy or blood-letting would those things work for me too? Or should I maybe first determine if they have any credible substantiation or logic to them? Should I "just believe" or "be open" to snorting cocaine for the purpose of mind expansion or would I be well advised to investigate the claims made for it first?
I am "blind" to many things, Mystic ... and rightly so. I don't accept a whole range of ideas and beliefs. I do not "just believe" or "open" myself to bigfoot or leprechauns any more than you do. I certainly will consider credible evidence for such things if anyone ever presented it, but in the meantime, I don't afford belief to them. Why the special pleading for your deity?
There is no special pleading, mordant. I want you to have NO expectations whatsoever and just sincerely and objectively seek connection and be open to whatever way it might come. The "be quiet and know that I am" is the simplest description of the process.
The "be quiet and know that I am" is the simplest description
of the process.
I agree...it is a quiet stillness beyond most people's imagination....when that stillness is not
reached then many pooh-pooh the truth of the advice or clue.
Any wanting to practice it...I say...Hang in there!
...it is a quiet stillness beyond most people's imagination....when that stillness is not
reached then many pooh-pooh the truth of the advice or clue....m
Peace, be still. Be still and know that I am...
Make me the peace of the silence in the mountains...
"...The Lord will fight WITH you, if you do fight..."
The whole chapter reads like a worse Quranic verse... or something a Spartan might say.
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Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Talk about being still and waiting patiently, the above is a formula that would work even to find Athena's heavenly democracy that contradicts ancient Jewish heavenly fascism.
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